A Facebook friend asked me about this image earlier today, and when I asked about its source, I received no reply. Someone else, however, mentioned that the infamous D. M. Murdock as having already been discussing it online, making me even more suspicious. But a couple of bibliobloggers have posted the picture, and so I thought I’d do so as well. What, if anything, does this have to do with the supposedly first-century manuscript fragment of the Gospel of Mark... Read more
We all have some parts of our mind that we consider unworthy, some memory that makes us shudder and squirm. The above quote from the character Quillam in the Doctor Who episode “Vengeance on Varos” captures one aspect of the Sixth Doctor admirably – some of the harshest characteristics of the Doctor, from his arrogance to his willingness to see lives lost on occasion – come to the fore in his character – as does his persistent lack of fashion... Read more
If you’re in the UK, you can get The Burial of Jesus from Amazon.co.uk – no need to go to the American store. And if my calculation is correct, it is slightly cheaper via Amazon in the UK for some reason! The book has now reached the Top 10 in the Kindle bestsellers in the Ancient History category on Amazon.com. Who knows what will happen on Amazon.co.uk if the word gets out that it is closer to $3 there! 🙂 Read more
Created by my good friend Bob Patterson Read more
This cartoon illustrates well one of the reasons why I’ve moved away from exams that focus on the recall of facts of the sort that can be memorized for a test and then forgotten. HT A Feather Adrift Read more
Yesterday’s episode of Fringe, “A Better Human Being,” explored a couple of interesting religious and philosophical themes related to modern science and scientific possibilities. The more obvious of the two relates to the doctor who, when using IVF to help women get pregnant, implanted them with “improved” genetic material to try to make “a better human being,” one in which some of our latent abilities were reactivated. The doctor in question refers to the hubris of “trying to improve upon... Read more
One feature that young-earth creationists, mythicists, and other proponents of pseudoscholarly ideas have in common in the way they treat the writings of actual experts in the field in question. On the one hand, they will mine the writings of experts for sound bites and quotes that seem to support their viewpoint, and will pepper their blog posts and discussion board comments with them liberally. On the other hand, they dismiss at least one of the central conclusions drawn by... Read more
I had not yet seen a contribution to the “What I Really Do” meme depicting religion professors, so I thought I’d try my hand at one. What do you think? Any suggestions for improvements? EDIT: Here’s another one, on the same theme, lest it seem that I either think that all religion professors are men, and lest in trying to divide the roles in one meme image, someone read too much into which ones I assign to men or... Read more
I will be blogging over the coming days and weeks about many of the topics that I touch on in my book, The Burial of Jesus: What Does History Have to Do with Faith?, which is now for sale at Amazon.com for just $2.99. One of the topics I address is the focus (some might say obsession) that contemporary Christianity has with the afterlife. Now, some might find that statement strange, but that is precisely because for many today, religion... Read more
This Doctor Who episode about the Daleks was apparently envisaged as providing an end and closure to the Doctor’s interactions with the Daleks. Of course, it was not to be, and one of the things about narratives involving time travel is that, even if one totally obliterates, defeats, or fundamentally changes an enemy at one point in time, they can still be encountered in their past. They would, however, be absent from the show for several years. In “The Evil... Read more
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