{"id":26873,"date":"2014-10-28T09:20:15","date_gmt":"2014-10-28T13:20:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/exploringourmatrix\/?p=26873"},"modified":"2014-10-28T09:20:15","modified_gmt":"2014-10-28T13:20:15","slug":"bible-weirdness-competition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2014\/10\/bible-weirdness-competition.html","title":{"rendered":"Bible Weirdness Competition"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

In order to illustrate some points related to information literacy in my class on the Bible, I asked students to find the wackiest claims made about the Bible\u00a0online. The two top contenders were (1) that the oil in the Middle East is essentially the luscious Garden of Eden<\/a>, turned into oil by Noah\u2019s flood, and (2) that Noah\u2019s flood happened on Mars<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I suggested that combining the two \u2013 that\u00a0oil\u00a0in the Middle East is the remnants of the Garden of Eden, which was on Mars and destroyed by Noah\u2019s flood \u2013 might be weirder still.<\/p>\n

But of existing oddities to be found online, what is the absolute strangest, most bizarre, and most ridiculous you\u2019ve come across?<\/p>\n

And most importantly \u2013 because this was the question that we turned to next in class \u2013 how do you\u00a0know<\/em> that that viewpoint is off the deep end? It is easy to dismiss the outlandish-sounding. But sometimes things that sound outlandish to us turn out to be true.<\/p>\n

Other than gut instinct reaction, how do you know \u2013 and how would you show \u2013 that the crazy thing about the Bible that comes to mind is in fact crazy?<\/p>\n

Of related interest, Ian Paul blogged about end-times craziness, with focus on David Jeremiah<\/a>, who is the one connected with the claim about the Garden of Eden and oil above.<\/p>\n

\"Garden<\/p>\n

\"what_really_happened_at_the_garden_of_eden_100204_1339\"<\/p>\n

\"Adam<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In order to illustrate some points related to information literacy in my class on the Bible, I asked students to find the wackiest claims made about the Bible\u00a0online. The two top contenders were (1) that the oil in the Middle East is essentially the luscious Garden of Eden, turned into oil by Noah\u2019s flood, and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":136,"featured_media":26908,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,44],"tags":[1140,2486,3060,3485,3761,7045,8171,8343],"class_list":["post-26873","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bible","category-information-literacy","tag-bible","tag-david-jeremiah","tag-end-times","tag-flood","tag-garden-of-eden","tag-mars","tag-noah","tag-oil"],"yoast_head":"\nBible Weirdness Competition<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"In order to illustrate some points related to information literacy in my class on the Bible, I asked students to find the wackiest claims made about the\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2014\/10\/bible-weirdness-competition.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Bible Weirdness Competition\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"In order to illustrate some points related to information literacy in my class on the Bible, I asked students to find the wackiest claims made about the\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2014\/10\/bible-weirdness-competition.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Religion Prof: The Blog of James F. 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