It was suggested to me today that Snoopy must be a time lord, since his doghouse seems to be bigger on the inside than the outside. Apparently this is not the first time the idea has occurred to someone, since I found these pictures online: There are other Peanuts meets Doctor Who images out there. And there is at least one other obvious candidate for a time lord with a TARDIS: See here for evidence not only that his garbage... Read more
A post at IO9 informs us of J. J. Abrams’ view that, while he has heard a lot of negative feedback about how LOST ended, he has not heard good positive suggestions on how it should have ended. The post at IO9 offers some suggestions. What do you think? If you were unsatisfied with the ending, then how do you think LOST should have ended? Here’s the amusing version from the series “How It Should Have Ended“: And of course,... Read more
Thanks to Rafael Rodriguez for continuing the conversation in not one but two posts on his blog. I think that there are several issues that are getting entangled, which it would be worth disentangling (to the extent that we can) before proceeding. First, can we identify redactional tendencies in works? I think so, and I think Rafael does as well. Second, are all instances of variations that accord with a work’s redactional tendency necessarily redactional changes made by the author,... Read more
Steve Caruso has posted this month’s biblioblog rankings. The top biblioblog this month was Debunking Christianity, which demonstrated its character as a biblioblog by tackling the topic of the historical Jesus (among other things), doing its part to spread a mainstream scholarly approach among atheists, some of whom find mythicism attractive. Exploring Our Matrix came in at #3. Thank you to all visitors, and special thanks to Steve Caruso for devising a way for non-self-hosted WordPress blogs to participate. We... Read more
David Hayward has another provocative cartoon, worth well over a thousand words, and perhaps suggesting that millions of words are not worth as much as some of us are inclined to think they are. Read more
I am grateful to Eerdmans for sending me a free review copy of Mark S. Smith’s book God in Translation: Deities in Cross-Cultural Discourse in the Biblical World (published by Eerdmans in 2010, originally published in 2008 by Mohr Siebeck). The book looks at a relatively neglected aspect of ancient Israelite, early Jewish and early Christian religion in relation to and the context of its wider Near Eastern and Mediterranean context, namely the translatability of deities. The book begins with... Read more
The book I edited, Religion and Science Fiction, is now available for purchase via the publisher’s web site. And for a limited time, I am able to offer readers of this blog a discount coupon code! For a limited time, purchase Religion and Science Fiction on the publisher’s website and receive a 40% discount off the retail price by entering the following coupon code at checkout: RASF. Offer Expires: 8/31/2011. Here is the list of contributors and their chapters: Introduction:... Read more
Rafael kindly responded to my reply to his post, including (in a comment here) the following video, which presumably was meant to indicate that he would be tap dancing around some of the issues. 🙂 Rafael mentions a number of topics – such as whether Mark Goodacre is correct about the matter of Q – which complicate the quest of historians and scholars to make sense of these texts. I think that the following quote illustrates what is at the... Read more
Rafael Rodriguez has posted some thoughts on reading Tom Holmén’s entry on “Authenticity Criteria” in the Routledge Encyclopedia of the Historical Jesus. Since Rafael and I have had conversations about this topic both in the blogosphere and in person, he won’t be surprised to hear that I think he is wrong. But since the theme of the Synoptic problem is thus far the only theme that has been suggested for next month’s Biblical Studies Carnival, this is a good opportunity... Read more
Daniel O. McClellan has posted the latest Biblical Studies Carnival, and it addresses a range of views from carnythicism to carniementalism. Click through and enjoy! Many thanks to Dan for hosting the carnival this month. Don’t forget that next month’s carnival (i.e. the one featuring this month’s posts) will be right here at Exploring Our Matrix. And so if you would like the carnival to have a particular theme, or several themes, please let me have your suggestions! Read more
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