Having mentioned in my previous post the importance of understanding how oral and primarily oral cultures deal with sources, attribution of “authorship,” “quotation” and other aspects of passing on tradition, I thought I would share two classic books by Jan Vansina that are on Google Books. Vansina’s work on oral tradition and history is well known, and I presume that some readers may find the previews available online interesting and beneficial. He also discusses some of the criteria that historians... Read more

Chapter 2 is a refreshing change from what preceded it. Up until now, the impression one gets when reading Earl Doherty’s book, Jesus: Neither God Nor Man, is that the author is simply trying out a different way of reading certain New Testament texts. In some instances it may seem plausible, and in others severely problematic, but in none did it naturally seem to arise from or be required by the available evidence. It has consistently seemed that the theory... Read more

I have often had the opportunity or the necessity to read a book that I expected from the outset I would disagree with or find unpersuasive. I have quite often been pleasantly surprised, while in other cases, I have written a very negative review of the book on my blog. Reading chapter 1 of Earl Doherty’s book Jesus: Neither God Nor Man was unlike both such types of past experiences. It was more like the sensation of having entered The... Read more

I have been asked more than once, including recently, what my understanding of Christianity is. I thought I would share an excerpt from a message I sent to someone who asked me that very recently, since others might find it interesting. Here’s what I wrote: I find it as hard to define “Christianity” in any absolute doctrinal terms as I find it to define “religion” and “monotheism” and other terms as a scholar. It seems like every term that human... Read more

Via Ardel Caneday, I heard about a Logos Bible software contest that offers money for seminary tuition to a current or soon-to-be seminary student, as well as free software. Presumably I needn’t say more about why I’m sharing this! 🙂 Read more

The season finale of Fringe did what season finales in LOST did best, without some of the things that it did that viewers found most frustrating. It took the plot developments thus far and gave them a direction to go in the next season that would add something new and exciting to the mix, and allow for new and satisfying themes. It did this  in a way that probably has many viewers asking (as we did with LOST) “What just... Read more

I expressed the desire a while back to work on coming up with some progressive Christian music for use in church services – whether congregational singing or solo performance. Although I’ve kept coming back to this idea, and wishing I had more time to focus on it, the fact that someone else with a similar interest recently contacted me, asked if I had come up with anything, and shared some of his and his wife’s music, got me thinking more... Read more

A significant change will be coming to Exploring Our Matrix soon…a dramatic change, the likes of which my blog has not experienced since February 2007… It will be more dramatic than this:  but not quite this: Read more

Reading the first twelve pages, the introduction to Earl Doherty’s book Jesus: Neither God Nor Man – The Case for a Mythical Jesus has done nothing to ease the concerns I expressed nor change the impression I received in reading the preface, and the first sentence. If this were a scholarly book, the author would be trying to outline the argument that will be offered in the remainder of the book, indicating an awareness of points that will be controversial or... Read more

Larry Hurtado’s review of my book The Only True God: Early Christian Monotheism in Its Jewish Context is out in the May 2011 issue of Expository Times (a longer version can be found on his web site, and that version of the review provided the basis for a useful discussion that took place between his blog and this one in November of last year). Apparently right after it is a review of James Dunn’s recent book Did the First Christians Worship Jesus?: The New... Read more