This was posted at Stuff Fundies Like, together with a reflection on tactics fundamentalists use to avoid acknowledging that there are confusing and unintelligible things in the Bible. Sadly, those tactics lead most fundamentalists to never open a commentary or pursue other lines of inquiry that might actually lead them to understand more than they currently do. I’ll be talking about the Book of Job in class today. If one looks at the footnotes of most English Bibles, they will... Read more
Tom Verenna will be hosting the next Biblical Studies Carnival. If you have posted something on a blog this month on the topic of Biblical studies, write to him and tell him about it! Read more
I unfortunately didn’t find the time to chime in myself, but Patheos hosted a multi-blog conversation on the future of seminary education, and I wanted to at least link to it and share it with you. If you have any thoughts about the subject, feel free to leave a comment, whether here or on one of the participating blogs! Also, don’t miss that Ken Schenck also shared thoughts on seminary education, and that Marc Cortez shared some bullet points on... Read more
The planet Marinus, the Doctor and his companions learn not long after arriving there, has a fascinating history. The people of the planet created a sophisticated computer that could serve as the perfect judge and administrator. Then they found that it could even do more – it could control the minds of people and eliminate all evil from society. As a result of this “Conscience machine” the planet became unique, knowing no war, theft, murder, or anything else of the... Read more
As many readers will know, I have in the past compared what historians do to what a jury tries to do in a criminal case: prove matters “beyond reasonable doubt.” Today I reported for jury duty. In the end I wasn’t picked to serve. “Many are called but few are chosen.” During the preliminaries, the judge emphasized the difference between a civil case, in which the standard of proof is “more probable than not,” and a criminal case, in which... Read more
I have decided no longer to put up quietly with the teachings of Genesis 1 and young-earth creationists. How dare they demean God and make him out to be only very powerful rather than omnipotent? Why can they not accept that teaching creation in six days detracts from God’s glory, when God, being omnipotent, could have created in an instant? Hopefully most readers will have realized that the above is parody. In fact, it is precisely the line of argument... Read more
The ninth episode of the first season of Torchwood, “Invisible Eugene,” is full of poignant double entendres and symbolism. The title itself reflects the life of an individual who, after failing in a math competition, was abandoned by his father and ignored by most people as he followed a trajectory that involved entering into possession of an alien eye and waiting around for something interesting to happen – presumably when the alien returned to claim it. As his father leaves... Read more
It sounds as though the time has come to say farewell to Google Reader – whether we like to or not. The announced plan to eliminate Google Reader and integrate some (but not all) of its features with Google+ will presumably affect this blog in at least one concrete way: the sidebar in which I share links to things of interest on other blogs will presumably have to be eliminated, since the “Share” feature is one of the components of... Read more
My review of the book Jesus, Gnosis and Dogma by Riemer Roukema has been posted on the Review of Biblical Literature web site. Read more
HT Hemant Mehta Read more
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