Religion Nerd explains that religious studies is not the same thing as theology. Mark Goodacre shares videos of Christopher Tuckett (talking about Q!) and Geza Vermes (about Jewish life in the time of Jesus): Tim Henderson highlights a chapter by Michael Holmes on textual criticism and the evidence for macro-level stability and micro-level fluidity in the transmission process. Rod of Alexandria shares why Evangelicals should love the extracanonical Gospel of Mary. Christopher Hays has an article at Religion Dispatches connecting the... Read more

Things are moving ahead with the possibility of taking a trip or two to Israel in the near future, with the intention of having the visit be part of preparation to lead a short-term study abroad experience for students every couple of years. I’m getting past the stage of thinking about general aspects of the itinerary and sites to visit, and turning my attention to specifics of accommodation and transportation. I would welcome additional input anyone wishes to offer, with such specifics... Read more

I finally got around to watching last week’s episode of Chuck and was delighted by the nods to LOST and then later to The Matrix. A bank account had the numbers and then the bank manager turned out to be none other than François Chau, the actor who played Pierre Chang. Read more

I had someone who described himself as a recovering fundamentalist write to ask me a question about a topic that is not entirely outside of my field of expertise, but is nevertheless one in which I have no formal training and about which others are far more qualified than I am. The question was about the band Rush. Specifically, the individual in question had been a fan of Rush, but was told in their fundamentalist days that the symbol sometimes... Read more

NOT Mrs. Yahweh (in case the title of the post confused you).  A BBC TV show on Asherah – the consort of Yahweh in ancient Israel before a reformation/revolution resulted in the eventual elimination of her worship and the denunciation and demotion of her in Biblical texts – is getting some attention around the blogosphere. Jim Davila and Joel Watts have brief mentions, while Doug Chaplin offers a longer complaint that the show is being hyped when in fact there is... Read more

It seems that the sidebar widget with my shared items from Google Reader stopped working. I tinkered with it, and it seemed to be back in Chrome, but not other browsers. And then it disappeared again. You can always find my shared items here. Sorry for any inconvenience this has caused! Do feel free to leave a comment saying that you can or can’t see the sidebar in question, or offering suggestions related to making the sidebar reappear (or, if... Read more

Soon after I shared on Facebook a post by Adrian Worsfold about “Saying Jesus was Wrong,” Ken Brown reposted an earlier blog entry of his about what it means to trust the Bible. At one point he writes: To trust the Bible, then, does not mean believing it without question, but interactingwith [sic] it, questioning it, reflecting its claims off of each other and our continuing experience, but, ultimately, letting it transform us. I wonder whether liberal/progressive Christianity could not... Read more

Joel Watts has won the Jim West LOLcat competition that Jim Linville recently held. Congratulations! Below is the winning entry… Read more

Rachel Held Evans has written an open letter…to the genre of the open letter. Here’s how it begins: Dear Open Letter, Seeing as how we don’t actually know one another and personal letters don’t generate any blog traffic, I’ve decided to publicly air my grievances against you in a format that positions you as the powerful elite and me as the scrappy underdog willing to take you on. I will begin with a backhanded compliment, thanking you for making it... Read more

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