James Martin recently shared some parables which illustrate what Jesus might have said if his views were more like those of some of his modern-day followers (I mentioned them last week). The Facebook group Christians Against the Tea Party turned some quotes from them into pictures, and I thought I should share them here, for your enjoyment and discussion. Read more
This episode from the PBS documentary Evolution is a useful one, and I’ll be having my class on Religion and Science watch it. Since the entire episode is available online, I thought it might be useful to share it here too. Read more
There’s a new issue of the open access Biblical studies journal Relegere, featuring several interesting articles, including an article about U2 and the Psalms, one about Genesis 1-3 and evolution, and an essay by James Crossley offering “An Immodest Proposal for Biblical Studies.” There will be a conference about the criteria of authenticity in historical Jesus research in Dayton, Ohio in October. Click through for more details about the dates and the scholars who will be speaking there. Jim West pointed... Read more
Summers are special times for professors. At the start of them, we make implausibly grandiose plans about what we are going to accomplish during them. At the end of them, we wonder where the time has gone. Here are some of the things I did this summer: Took students to Israel. Finished work on translating the chapters I was responsible for in the Mandaean Book of John. Worked on an encyclopedia article on “monotheism” (Almost done…) Began work on creating... Read more
I have shared on my blog more than once a challenge that I was given a while ago, or better, a thought experiment I was encouraged to carry out, namely, to ask myself “What would it take to make you lose your faith?” For the purpose of this scenario, I was allowed to have a time and space machine, and so could go anywhere in the universe and anytime in history. You can click through to read more about my thoughts back... Read more
Here’s part two of the webisode series Pond Life leading up to the new season of Doctor Who this weekend. Read more
Just when I thought that I might be able to narrow down which Bible software I want to use, or resign myself to using two different platforms, Accordance is throwing a spanner/wrench in the works. They will be releasing Accordance for Windows PCs in 2013! Now I'll have another one that I'll have to consider… In related news, Jim West shares some thoughts from Bryan Bibb on how Bible software is changing the way that people read the Bible.   Read more
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