There’s been a lot of talk online about how the advent of COVID-19 is an act of God specifically aimed at judging wicked people. While there’s no passage of Scripture that refers to the coronavirus (really … there isn’t), there is an interesting passage in the gospels...
Culture & Movies
Saving Ancient Manuscripts from ISIS
Over on the Evangelical Textual Criticism blog, Peter Gurry directs our attention to a 60 Minutes segment on the textual tragedy that accompanies the human tragedy caused by ISIS.
Christians, Christmas, and Such
The latest episode of the Naked Bible Podcast just uploaded. The topic is on whether Christians should consider Christmas a pagan holiday. I hope you’ll give it a listen. I broke down the topic into two areas: the traditional date of Christmas (December 25) and...
What Does Earning a PhD Mean?
What follows arose up within me in the wake of yet another soul-crushing example of the disturbing ignorance that passes for insight or knowledge in Christian Middle Earth. If you follow me on Twitter, you know I’m referring to a tweet that orgasmically exalted...
Exodus Movie: An Utterly Banal Waste of Time
Last night my wife and I saw the Exodus movie by Ridley Scott. She talked me into it. She told me it would be something people would expect me to see and say something about. Pardon me, but if my audience is this cruel, I need to rethink what I’m doing online....
Why You Don’t Learn Much Bible in Church
Just a heads up — this is another Naked Bible rant. Short answer: It’s by design. For the longer answer, keep reading. I came across a troubling, but completely predictable, article today by Mark Galli, an editor at Christianity Today, entitled...
Impressions on the Noah Movie
I went to see Noah last evening. I had briefly blogged about it earlier to draw readers’ attention to Brian Mattson’s review, which I highly recommend. I’m not going to recycle his observations. I just wanted to share some impressions. This is s a...
Dan Wallace on the Great Commission
Noted Greek grammarian and textual criticism scholar (and all-around nice guy) Dan Wallace recently posted a three-part treatment of the Great Commission. This is what pastors should be doing on any given Sunday. No, pastors don’t need to be Greek scholars. They...
Thoughtful Review of MacArthur’s “Strange Fire” Book
Thanks to Nijay Gupta’s note on Twitter that directed me to this review by Craig Keener. I’ve not followed the controversy over John MacArthur’s “Strange Fire” conference (a pugnacious criticism of the charismatic movement), which I...
How Cable TV Shows Like the History Channel Doctor What You Watch
Hat tip to Jason Colavito for the link. I can identify with “A Skeptic’s Brief Conversation with a TV Producer” given my own 2003 experience with one of the History Channel’s production companies (it’s the reason I have twice turned down...
Prometheus: Another Review
This past week at the annual meetings of the Society of Biblical Literature and the American Academy of Religion I ran into an old friend of mine, George Gatis, who practices law in South Carolina. George is a fellow bibliophile, theologian, and sci-fi fan. I was...
Something Different: Wayfarer
Something different indeed. I don’t usually blog about anything but biblical studies here, but I’m making an exception for Wayfarer , a band in Seattle about which I just learned a couple weeks ago. Â I was contacted by Dan Koch, the leader of the band,...
Jesus and Twitter
Thanks to Martin for sending this to me. Thought it was clever and funny:
Prometheus: A Galactic Bore
I saw Prometheus last night. Instead of enjoying the drive home with my head filled with appreciation for a provocative, inventive retelling of the ancient astronaut myth, my mind busied itself on how many ways I could mock this under-achieving, unimaginative bore of...
Promethean PaleoBabble
Hat tip to Jason Colavito for this link to a Salon.com piece on Ridley Scott’s new movie. When you click through, take note of the titling of the URL itself: “dazzling dumb-ass theology.” What a perfect, poetic description of the film and the ideas...