It seems like every time I prepare a conference paper, I wonder how long it should be, in terms of number of pages, so as to correspond to the allotted time. You would think that by now I would have the ratio perfected to a science, but in actual fact, I still find that even when I of a comparable standard length, sometimes I am done before the 20 minutes are up, while other times I still seem to be... Read more
As an update on the Mandaean Book of John translation project, let me share the news that a blog has been created for the purpose of posting completed drafts of both the typed Mandaic text and English translation of the Mandaean Book of John. It can be visited at http://rogueleaf.com/book-of-john/ Please keep in mind that, for the time being at least, what is posted there are drafts and not final, polished, corrected and edited versions of either the text or... Read more
Mike Bird posted on his blog Euangelion about a couple of my recent posts. Having addressed the first theme, inerrancy, in yesterday’s post, this one turns to the question of penal substitution. Since Mike asked specifically about Galatians 3:13 and Romans 8:3, I will make them the central focus of this post. Galatians 3:13 is a fascinating text, and commentators have put a lot of effort into trying to make sense of it. Rather than reproduce such discussion in full... Read more
Two humorous images related to this theme. First, here’s a cartoon from David Hayward: And via Jesus Needs New PR, a sign from a church that believes that God is still speaking: Read more
I think it is hilarious that Mike Bird referred to me as the “Lady Gaga of the biblioblogosphere.” But if I’m a Liberal/Progressive Christian, it isn’t because I was “born this way.” The views I now hold are ones that it took me a while to reach, and while I wasn’t born into conservative Evangelicalism either, once there, I took the usual steps to resist “sliding” into “liberalism.” And thus the depiction of the stereotypical college professor offered by Collin... Read more
I had the privilege of contributing the entry on “Religion and Science Fiction” to a brand new textbook on science fiction. The volume consists of a mix of classic and less well known sci-fi stories, interspersed with scholarly essays about the genre. The volume is edited by Leigh Grossman, and its title is A Sense of Wonder: A Century of Science Fiction. It is published by Wildside Books. Read more
Just a reminder that Exploring Our Matrix has moved to Patheos. Please click through to visit the site, and update any subscription or link you may have to the present location. The new address is: http://www.patheos.com/community/exploringourmatrix/ Read more
Let’s start this collection of links with Adam Kotsko’s post on literalism. Here’s a sample: I sometimes had to fight an uphill battle with secular liberal students who basically took fundamentalists at their word that they were following the Bible “literally” and who felt that such “literalism” was somehow the most authentic form of religion. Throughout my time there, I would emphasize the fact that a literal reading of the whole of Scripture that sticks to the “plain sense” and... Read more
On the blog Diglotting, in a post with the title “Paul, 1 Cor. 8.6, and the Shema,” Kevin Brown asked if anyone apart from me views what Paul is doing in 1 Corinthians 8:6 as a supplementing of the Shema (adding one human lord alongside the one God) rather than an inclusion of Jesus within the Shema (and, according to Richard Bauckham, within the “divine identity,” whatever that means). My own thoughts on this subject can be found not only... Read more
An interesting post at the blog Undeception compares continuity errors in two canons – the Bible and Star Trek – and notes the similarity between the attempts at harmonization among die-hard fans of both. I can also share under the heading “religion and science fiction” a humorous video about Calvinism (HT Hacking Christianity), because at one point one of the characters suggests that the other may be confusing God with Megatron. Read more
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In