In a conversation with a young-earth creationist here on this blog, I was struck by the irony of the fact that he offered, as one reason for rejecting evolution, the teaching of Scripture that we should not follow the ways or teachings of sinful human beings. How right he is, and how wrong at the same time! Scripture nowhere says that the people of God should have different names for colors, or natural phenomena, merely because unbelieving society names them... Read more
Time and time again I have heard young-earth creationists say that one has to choose between what humans say about the origins of the cosmos and of human beings on the one hand, and the Word of God on the other. From a Christian perspective, this is exactly right. And young-earth creationists have chosen the former and rejected the latter. They insist on one particular and relatively recent human interpretation of some human-authored texts from ancient times, and what those... Read more
A discussion I’ve been part of on Facebook illustrates something that I have said before on numerous occasions: ultimately, for those approaching the Bible as a sacred text, one has to choose between showing respect for the Bible above all, or giving ultimate authority to a doctrine of Biblical inerrancy. This was illustrated in a discussion of the genealogies in Matthew and Luke. The two do not agree between David and Joseph. The most common approach to harmonizing them is... Read more
Marvin Meyer, known to many not only for his work on the Gnostic Gospels but also his appearance in several documentaries, has passed away. Alin Suciu has more details about his career and his passing. Meyer was scheduled to present in the same Nag Hammadi and Gnosticism session as I am in November at the Society of Biblical Literature Annual Meeting in Chicago. I was particularly looking forward to having the opportunity of that occasion to get to meet him... Read more
On Facebook I shared this quote from Richard Dawkins, which came to me in poster form via George Takei: Biologist Larry Moran chimed in both on Facebook and on his blog to point out that the statement is, at the very least, not entirely correct, and the extent to which it is true depends on what one is referring to by the word “evolution.” If, to use a classic example, a fossil of a rabbit was discovered in the Precambrian... Read more
John Byron has offered a great response on his blog to my post about the New Testament’s relative lack of interest in the topic of homosexuality. He agrees with me on the point that at times it is appropriate to view a matter differently than New Testament authors did. And he makes the point that an argument from silence is unworkable. Even though most will understand that my argument from Jesus’ silence was aimed primarily at poking fun at those... Read more
As many of us prepare to teach again, professors are thinking already about how students will evaluate their courses. Here’s what one student wrote on an evaluation form, about what they’d do if they had just one hour left to live: HT The Mills River Progressive Read more
There is something ironic about people pointing to their canon of Scripture and being uncompromising on the basis of it or about things that it says. A canon is almost always a result of compromise, and this is nowhere more true than in the case of the Jewish and Christian Bibles. Indeed, the fact that we speak of “the Bible” despite the fact that there are different Bibles used by Jews, Eastern Orthodox Christians, Roman Catholic Christians, Protestant Christians, and... Read more
Jona Lendering posted a reply on his blog to a recent post on mine, about teaching students to use online sources discerningly. His conclusion is stated bluntly at the end of the post: To sum up: at this moment there is no good reason why students should use the internet. Let’s face it: the internet has failed. I strongly disagree, both on principle and in practice. On principle, I think that there is reliable information available online, if one knows where... Read more
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