‘Doing’ History in Light of Memes and Cultural Memory Both Ancient and Modern

A recent article by Paul V.M. Flesher on Bible and Interpretation was posted on cultural memory a few days ago, and it was while I was in the process of writing this post, so I thought I might incorporate it into this discussion.  Here is a snippet and a relevant definition of ‘cultural memory’ and [...]

Joe Zias’ Reaction to BBC Article

Joe was goodly enough to pass along this comment to me, posted with his permission: First thing one has to see is who is promoting it.  Englishman who broke the story called me a few yrs back wanting to meet with me here in Jerusalem, over a book he was writing on Qumran. We met and he asked [...]

Reactions to the BBC Report on the Lead Codices

For those who don’t know, the BBC has finally put out an article refuting a story they had published a few months ago on the Lead Codices, and for those of us who have been ‘on the case’ since the beginning, we feel it is about time.  There are some very useful parts to the [...]

Gerd Lüdemann – The Death of the Biblical God

Gerd Lüdemann has a new article up on Bible and Interpretation’s website.  Here is a snippet: Ultimately all this presents a problem for all three “Abrahamitic” religions. The Church, regarding herself as the New Israel, has always taken the Old Testament myth of Yahweh’s election and concern for Israel as a firmly established constituent of [...]

Terrorism: Why Don’t We Just Call it What it is?

A group of men take over passenger aircraft and ram them into buildings.  Another group of men kidnap people and hold them, some issue death threats, some attempt to assassinate someone.  Some people are killed by another group of men over their views on certain subjects.  Others occupy large areas of land that does not [...]

Defining Mythicism: A Few Questions for Historical Jesus Scholars

This is more of a musing, a pensive attempt at conversation away from the norm.  But here are some random questions, in the hopes of coaxing out deeper thoughts on the question, for historical Jesus scholars on the figure of Jesus. If such a figure as Jesus existed, do you really think his this earthly, [...]

Searching for Muses: Alexander the Great on Jesus?

Yes, someone legitimately searched for ‘alexander the great quotes on jesus‘ and got to my blog.  First, I really hope that they were not searching for quotes from Alexander the Great on the figure of Jesus.  I really, really, really hope they weren’t.  In fact, I’m going to delude myself into thinking people aren’t that [...]

Tom from Family Guy

Yes, they are starting registration for Family Guy Online, a new online web-browser-based game set in the world of Family Guy!  And while I’d never play (it would ruin the series for me), I did rush over to the site to register so I could create my own Family Guy facsimile of me!   And I [...]

Some Clarifications on Heb. 2:17

I wanted to make this post separate of my apology to James, mainly because I feel that apologies should stand alone as they are, without dirtying them with lots of explanations and whatnot.  I hold firm to my apology to James and am glad to hear he accepted it, but now I must press on [...]

Heb. 2:17 and οφειλω κατα παντα τοις αδελφοις ομοιωθηναι

It seems I owe James McGrath and apology.  (I’m sorry, James!) In an earlier post, I stated that words he had bolded in a translation did not appear in the text.  In fact they do appear in the Greek, but they can be read in a different order than how James’ translation had placed them [...]