Yes, you read that correctly. Jason Colavito just posted about this piece of wacky Bible interpretation. It's a good post, made entertaining by the fact that the notion of pterosaurs in the Bible comes to us from Ken Ham's creation ministry. It's biblical paleobabble...
Paleobabble (Misreading Texts)
Another Reason Why Biblical Studies and Archaeology Should Not Be Done Via the Mainstream Popular Media
Ah, the paleobabbling media now gives us proof that it is also clueless with respect to intellectual discourse. Mark Goodacre reports that Nicole Austin, the Associate Producer on The Resurrection Tomb Mystery documentary (The Jesus Discovery in Canada) has accused...
Yahweh and Asherah: More Archaeo-Porn for the Masses
[ADDENDUM: March 23, 2011 I just wanted to direct readers to three items I have written, two of which are free. I offer them since the issue below gets into the issue of monotheism in Israel. First, there is a pre-publication version of an article that was published...
Promotion of Racist Theories Using the Bible
I recently discovered a book that I can't wait to read called Adam's Ancestors: Race, Religion, and the Politics of Human Origins (author: David Livingstone; Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008). The book is about how, in response to Darwinism, certain 19th and 20th...
666 PaleoBabble
Someone kindly brought this piece of paleobabble to my attention recently. The site argues that certain Arabic letters/symbols visually resemble the Greek text of "666" in the book of Revelation. More accurately, the Arabic allegedly resembles the common Greek New...
Great Moments in Pulpit PaleoBabble
Here's a YouTube video that's a real treat (if you like PaleoBabble on Sunday morning). The sermon is about "alpeh and tav" -- the first and last letters of the Hebrew alphabet. The minister (?) equates this with the description of Jesus as the first and the last,...
Excellent Article on the Sol Invictus Myth as the Basis for Birth Date of Jesus on December 25
Some readers will recall that last year around Christmas we devoted an episode of the Naked Bible Podcast (#195) to the myth that Christmas was a pagan holiday because of the December 25 (winter solstice) date. As the myth goes, the date was chosen by Constantine to...
What Was the Hebrew Name of Jesus?
I get questions about the divine name periodically, or about how Jesus is a pagan name for Zeus (or similar nonsense). For those items, click here, here, and here, respectively. But more often than not, I get questions about how the Hebrew name of Jesus was...
There’s PaleoBabble in the Evangelical World, Too
What's fair is fair. Sanctified paleobabble is still paleobabble. The excellent Evangelical Textual Criticism blog posted this back in February: "Debunking Silly Statements about the Bible." Most of the items are examples of claims that over-extend the data. That sort...
The Geo-Centric Universe: Yep, There are Still People Who Believe It
The Exposing Pseudoastronomy podcast devoted a recent episode to this long held myth. It's a classic mis-reading of the Bible, which never actually makes the claim, though church authorities of all stripes assumed it (assisted by "creatively" reading into the text)...
Introducing the Harold Camping Annual Bunkagesis Award
The votes are all in, and by a very narrow margin (3 votes), "bunkagesis" has been selected as the term of choice for recognizing egregiously awful examples of handling Scripture. I can't think of a better way to say "please put the Bible down and back slowly away" or...
Bible Code Debate This Weekend
Some of you may be interested to know that my 2001 debate with Grant Jeffrey on Coast to Coast AM (then with Art Bell -- the old Art Bell Show) will be replayed this weekend (Saturday night). Wow. 2001 - my grad school days. The link has the show set for 6-10 PT. I...
Ahmed Osman: No Stranger to Revisionist PaleoBabble
Ahmed Osman has authored a number of books promoting fringe revisionist history with respect to ancient Egypt and the Bible (basically, the intersection of the two). His books have apparently sold well (no surprise there). Here are some titles (I love the one with the...
Serpent and Eve PaleoBabble FollowUp
Some of you may have noticed that there has been recent discussion on this thread on the PaleoBabble site. Apparently someone who desperately wants to say the serpent and Eve had sex to (not sure) defend Zecharia Sitchin or some sort of sexual activity between...
Now Jesus Didn’t Die on a Cross…or Did He?
A nice treat for us -- some scholarly paleobabble! Readers may have seen or heard the "news" that, according to scholar Gunnar Samuelsson, the gospels do not say Jesus died on a cross. This, my friends, is either a good example of sophistry or yet another reason to...