Let me start this music-oriented post by highlighting that Jim Linville kindly put together a roster for a band of bibliobloggers. I play keyboards. Doug Chaplin reciprocated my tagging him with a meme about CCM, by tagging me with a meme asking me to choose a hymn I love to hate. Being forced to choose only one, I found it rather easy to pick “All Things Bright and Beautiful” because of its infamous and oft-omitted verse: The rich man in his... Read more

Although recent episodes of V focused on the soul have not avoided a certain “hokeyness”, I am still on the whole happy to see the show exploring the relationship of faith to extraterrestrial science. There is a clip of a key scene from the last episode on YouTube (unfortunately embedding has been disabled). It depicts Anna’s visit to the Vatican. If large spacecraft ever actually came to hover over Earth’s cities, it is hard to imagine that we would not... Read more

Since Nick Norelli has decided to take on the subject of mythicism, it seems to me that it is the least I can do to direct those interested in the subject who read this blog over to his. Here’s a taste of his brief post on the subject: In point of fact, all the evidence points to there being a Jesus, and no evidence points away from this. The best that even the most ardent skeptic could argue is that... Read more

This is just a reminder about this session at SBL which I’m involved in. The call for papers is open, and while we have specific focuses we are encouraging, we will consider papers that are on a broader range of topics related to intertextuality and the New Testament! Call For Papers: For our 2011 sessions in November (San Francisco), the topics are as follows: 1) For our session on the Pauline Letters, we are accepting papers that study conceptual, topical,... Read more

http://i.cdn.turner.com/cnn/.element/apps/cvp/3.0/swf/cnn_416x234_embed.swf?context=embed&videoId=politics/2011/02/03/natpkg.obama.prayer.breakfast.cnn President Obama at the National Prayer Breakfast (via the CNN Belief Blog, which also has a transcript of his talk). Read more

Rod of Alexandria has come up with an interesting meme, asking bloggers what Contemporary Christian Music songs they have problems with. He’s not referring to my struggles to come up with a more impressive keyboard solo for “Rock of Ages,” but lyrics we object to. As he rightly indicates, there are many to choose from. My first instinct was to go with “God of Wonders” because, even though there are many levels on which I like the song, there is one phrase... Read more

Via Hemant Mehta’s blog, here’s a video of a Bible tutor who doesn’t shy away from telling all the Bible’s stories to children… Read more

Daniel McClellan continues reviewing Dunn’s Did The First Christians Worship Jesus? Diglotting finishes reviewing Casey’s Jesus of Nazareth. Duane Smith recommends the New Athena Unicode Greek font (Mark Goodacre seconds that recommendation). Frank Schaeffer asks how you pick up the pieces after your faith fails (HT Joel Watts). DoOrDoNot ponders the resurrection from our standpoint in history. Read more

Several different bloggers have already shared this video of a Volkswagen commercial featuring a young Darth Vader trying his force powers around the home: And although it is hard at times to see humor at the interface of religion and science in a climate in which pseudoscience continues to make inroads in science classrooms, nevertheless this image from Marc Cortez deserves to be shared – even though I’m not sure I can articulate in words precisely why! Read more

The blog Nouslife shared this slogan and it seemed to me significant enough that I actually mentioned it in class today. “You are not stuck in traffic. You are Traffic.” There is a profound insight here. We tend to objectify our problems, even when they are other people, even when they are aspects of our own bodies or minds, instead of recognizing that our impulses are part of us, or that we ourselves are drivers contributing to the slow flow... Read more