Ben Witherington reminded us of a recent post on Larry Hurtado’s blog about ancient monotheistic worship. It usefully points out that the defining factor of Jewish piety was not always expressed by means of a creedal statement, but often simply took the form of a refusal to worship any other than God. Note how often it is the case that specifically sacrificial worship was the make-or-break issue. In the case of other forms of “worship,” such as the prostration before... Read more
You may or may not be a fan of racing, but anyone who owned one of the much smaller versions of this Hot Wheels jump track will probably admit that the real life one that featured at the Indianapolis 500 today was kinda cool. Watch these videos of the record-breaking moment. Read more
TheoFantastique linked to a piece by Janice Vega asking about this, and offered one opinion. What about you? Which do you prefer? Read more
Via The New Testament Stumblr I discovered Jeremiah Bailey’s blog, which had the delightful cartoon below illustrating one of the many problems with inerrancy: the extreme lengths to which it often requires one to go in order to harmonize discrepancies. Read more
I’ve added a widget to the sidebar to make it easier to follow Exploring Our Matrix on Facebook via NetworkedBlogs. And if you have a blog that is part of NetworkedBlogs on Facebook, let me know so that I can reciprocate by following it! Read more
Open Parachute and Panda’s Thumb both report on the expansion of the Clergy Letter Project to include Muslim clergy voices in support of evolution. Also related, Sabio Lantz tells how evolution cost him his job. Jerry Coyne discusses the laryngeal nerve as evidence for evolution. Biologos continues the series on Mesopotamian sacred geography and the Bible. This installment focuses on the “firmament.” And slightly further removed, IO9 has a post on Gödel’s ontological argument for the existence of God. Here... Read more
Eddie at Kouya Chronicle has posted this definitive guide to the way people refer to Bible translations – and what they actually mean. Hilarious and poignant! Meaning Based: “a translation which prioritizes the meaning rather than the form of the original language.” Form Based: “a translation which prioritizes the form of the original language rather than the meaning.” Literal Translation “a form based translation” Word for Word: “a form-based translation and I don’t know much about languages.” Free Translation: “I... Read more
There have been books about the “sufficiency of Scripture”, but once as I was reading the Bible I happened across a verse which testifies to the insufficiency of Scripture. 2 John 12 reads: I have much to write to you, but I do not want to use paper and ink. Instead, I hope to visit you and talk with you face to face, so that our joy may be complete. How are we to understand this Scriptural witness to Scripture’s... Read more
This month the blog Unsettled Christianity has pulled ahead of the notorious, totally depraved, WalMart voyeur blog known as Zwinglius Redivivus. It has pulled ahead in the Alexa rankings not just once, but twice. Are we witnessing biblioblog history in the making? Click through and play your part in this historic moment! Read more
It is perhaps ironic that there is a well-worn conservative Christian phrase, of Biblical derivation, which illustrates wonderfully a point that Earl Doherty and Neil Godfrey either are missing themselves, or are fully aware of but hope that their readers will miss, namely that in and of are not universally interchangeable or synonymous. There are indeed some instances in which one could use either. There are many more in which one cannot. One illustration which I alluded to is the... Read more
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