These would have been more useful to me a few years ago, but I can enjoy them now. HT to Jen McCreight for pointing them out. The second one becomes particularly funny when you realize that the speaker describing his travels hasn’t left Indiana. 🙂 Read more
The above infographic seemed relevant in connection with my previous post. HT Hemant Mehta. Read more
HT Pharyngula Read more
Some of the most popular posts on my old blog site relates to Who’s Who scams, and since I continue to get e-mails very similar to the ones I talked about there, I thought it might be worth mentioning this topic again. Here is the text of one e-mail that I received very recently: Dear Academic Professional, You have been elected to represent your area of expertise in our upcoming registry. This notable accolade can improve your marketability and exposure.... Read more
Science was the best vehicle for determining whether Galileo was right. Church leaders who feared the crumbling of their Aristotelian theologies were not the best persons to make such a determination. Likewise, the discipline of history is the best vehicle for determining the historicity of Adam and Eve. Church leaders who fear the crumbling of their evangelical theologies are not the best persons to make such a determination. — David Miller, “Regarding the Evangelical Kerfuffle about the Historicity of Adam... Read more
At the site Center for a Stateless Society, Kevin Carson has posted a provocative piece on Jesus and piracy. Given the source, they presumably won’t mind my reproducing it here (while giving credit where credit is due): After reportedly feeding a crowd of five thousand with five loaves and two fishes, Jesus Christ of Nazareth was recently served with formal legal notice from industry trade associations, demanding that he cease and desist from what they charge is an illegal food-sharing... Read more
In one of my classes, after discussing a number of difficulties and issues related to the creation stories in Genesis, a student chimed in that sooner or later one simply has to have faith. I didn’t disagree, but instead asked: What sort of faith, and faith in what? We had already read part of Paul Tillich’s classic The Dynamics of Faith, and so students were aware of the possibility of other ways of thinking about faith. If one says it... Read more
In October, I’ll be one of the participants in a “blog tour” about the book Hitchhiker’s Guide to Jesus, A: Reading the Gospels on the Ground by Bruce N. Fisk. In the mean time, the publisher will be running a giveaway of books on the historical Jesus, which I suspect that many readers will be interested in taking part in. The giveaway starts September 19th, so keep an eye out for more details in the near future! Read more
A cowboy walks into a bar in Wyoming and orders three mugs of beer. He sits in the back of the room, drinking a sip out of each one in turn. When he finishes them he comes back to the bar and orders three more. The bartender approaches and tells the cowboy, “You know, a mug goes flat after I draw it. It would taste better if you bought one at a time.” The cowboy replies, “Well, you see, I... Read more
The blog On The Main Line recently had a post entitled “The weirdest Bible translation ever.” Can you guess which one the author had in mind? No, it isn’t the Klingon Bible. It is The Orthodox Jewish Bible: Tanakh and Orthodox Jewish Brit Chadasha by Phillip E. Goble. You can take a look at it in a Google Books preview. Since this blog has a lot of readers interested in both Bible translation and weirdness, I thought I would share... Read more
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