History and Fiction in the Bible & Beyond

Where does the border run between history and fiction? Sometimes it runs through a single work. There have been interesting discussions about topics along these lines, such as whether Luke is a reliable historian, and how we know what we know historically, on April DeConick's excellent Forbidden Gospels blog, and whether there are a wider range of genres in the Bible than many assume on Parchment and Pen.

The subject is a complex one, and best illustrated first with contemporary examples, before discussing whether Biblical literature reflects a similar situation. Is a movie like Braveheart or JFK history? Is it fiction? Would a hybrid category like "historical fiction" adequately capture it? The situation seems to be that of a spectrum, rather than one that a threefold typology can do justice to.

On one end, we can have sources that are the primary sources of history. An individual's memoirs and writings about their own experiences would fall into this category. Note that this does not mean that such works are completely accurate historically. Is there no one who doubts the extent to which Confessions of a Dangerous Mind reflects reality? It may provide accurate information, but this cannot simply be assumed.

On the other end of the spectrum we have 'pure fiction'. Even this can provide important types of useful historical information. It is easy to dismiss Harry Potter as pure fantasy. But what if it were one of the few works of literature from our time to survive into the far distant future? Historians might debate whether there really was a platform 9 3/4, not to mention the details of wizarding practice, but there are certainly places that are alluded to even in such a fictional work that a historian could use, if other more useful ones were not available.

In between, we have a number of different types of historical works. An example of historical fiction might be The Crucible. Once again, if a historian had only such a source, they still might be able to glean useful information. Historical traditions have been compared to a palimpsest, and The Crucible is a wonderful example. It tells a story set in the past, but precisely because it is felt to parallel a story currently running its course in the present. Others, like the movie Pearl Harbor, are similar inasmuch as they deal with fictional characters in the midst of actual events.

Even in movies that consist primarily of characters who were real people, the disclaimer tends to be added: Some persons and events have been dramatized. In telling a story about historical events, there is a difference from a list of dates and events. Some think the latter is "history", but the events we are living through now will one day be "history", and they aren't mere dates, places, names and numbers. History, it may be argued, cannot be separated from storytelling.
If we consider the New Testament Gospels, it is quite possible that some events of a particularly traumatic character (such as the arrest and crucifixion of Jesus) may have been fixed well in the minds of the disciples, a phenomenon referred to today as "flashbulb memory". But there is little evidence (the case made in Richard Bauckham's recent book not withstanding) that the New Testament Gospels were written by eyewitnesses. They are thus not individual memoirs but something else, and not necessarily all the same thing. Some may be based on the deposit of information shared by one particular Christian community. Others may have been based on research and information gathered from many places.

What they share in common, however, is that none seems to have had the chronological concern of modern historians. Events and stories about Jesus, as well as sayings, are set in plausible contexts in the narrative. In our attempts to reconstruct the life of Jesus as historians today, we do very much the same thing. We may be able to feel certain that Jesus engaged in a symbolic action in the Temple. But when he did so is less clear and involves a historical judgment (even if many - but by no means all - historians feel it is a relatively straightforward one). Placing it early or late in Jesus' career may influence, or be influenced by, one's understanding of how Jesus related to his mentor, John the Baptist. In trying to assemble the pieces into a chronological narrative, history involves an element of creative writing.

Even novelistic sources from a later time, like the Acts of Thomas, include details that can be historically confirmed. This does not mean that the entire story is trustworthy: it simply means that it isn't all made up. In no literary work can a historian, on the basis of confirmed historical details, assume on that basis that all the details are accurate. In particular, words placed on the lips of characters may reflect things that it is plausible for them to have said (following Thucydides), but in very few instances can they be regarded as anything even close to verbatim accounts. In many instances the conversations themselves may not have actually occurred, for all we know.

In short, there is nothing that can bypass the need for a historian to evaluate each and every detail on its own terms. The reasons are that even fictional works can make historical references, that even excellent historians make errors and fill in gaps with informed speculation, and that in any historical work it is possible that "some persons and events have been dramatized". Also, as the conclusion to the Gospel of John indicates, historical accounts involve selecting from information available (or sometimes working with piecemeal evidence) and presenting it selectively. As historians working on the historical figure of Jesus, for example, we have a choice similar to that which confronted the author of the Fourth Gospel, between focusing on particular incidents we think were important, and writing a comprehensive magnum opus that we will probably never finish and which few people if any will ever read.

For those interested in treating the Biblical literature in a serious historical fashion, these principles of critical inquiry are important. They are also useful when watching movies.

Join the Nerd Herd

Being a nerd is far more acceptable these days. I just watched "Chuck", the new NBC series, which I taped on Monday when it premiered, but only managed to watch this evening. The story revolves around a member of the "Nerd Herd" tech support employees at a "Sell More" store. Although the story in some ways recalls Johnny Mnemonic, Chuck is not enhanced through any actual technological add-ons, and thus he is different from both Johnny Mnemonic and from Jamie Sommers of Bionic Woman.

Yet Chuck is enhanced - by knowledge. Top secret information was sent to him in an e-mail, and the information was encoded into pictures in such a way that Chuck now has the information in his brain. The idea that while a computer can provide useful analysis, it is nothing a person's brain cannot do just as well provides a marked contrast to the cyberpunk vision of the future found in The Matrix or eXistenZ. Chuck is emphatically not enhanced in any of the ways one might imagine a cyborg could be. Nor can he throw knives, or even throw punches, or even apparently duck on time and avoid flying vases. Chuck is just an ordinary nerd, who happens to be useful. Most nerds are - in spite of the fact that (unlike Thomas Anderson/Neo in The Matrix) we don't have a technological shortcut to knowing kung fu.

At the end of the pilot episode, Chuck walks away from an NSA and a CIA agent who are threatening him, confident that they need him. This is the new vision of the nerd, and it is a refreshingly positive and hopeful one for nerds (a status which I proudly claim as my own - I might as well, since it is not as though I could deny it even if I wanted to). If in school the jocks pushed you around, take heart - they'll be back begging you to get their computer working before you know it.

Oh, and yes, in the end the beautiful women do marry us nerds. Trust me on this one...

Added Ads Oddly At Odds

I'm just so glad someone finally said something! It has for a long time driven me crazy the way ads are added to a web page advertising the very viewpoint that the page is dedicated to combatting!

Now the question is: what do we do about it? I'd suggest starting a movement, such as "Gathering Of Internet Nerds Growingly Annoyed by Google Ads", but the acronym is already taken.

Job and Despair

This reflection began as a response to an event at which three of my colleagues presented three different perspectives on the topic of despair. My colleague in religion, Chad Bauman, made a wonderful presentation about the four noble truths of Buddhism as well as the book of Job and the issues of despair and inexplicable suffering in a monotheistic context. Another colleague of ours mentioned during the question time afterwards that he has always found the book of Job problematic, since it seems to offer a 'management perspective' and to counsel human beings to keep quiet and not ask questions.

On the one hand, it will inevitably be the case that Biblical literature reflects a 'management perspective' in the sense that it was the educated, literate elite that produced literature, and thus we have no record of what anyone who was genuinely ordinary and typical thought about anything in either ancient Israel or the early Church. But the phrase could also mean that the book reflects a perspective of what we might call the 'Manager Most High', i.e. the perspective of God on these matters.

It is at this point that I think we find the key to unlocking the irony of the book of Job. For it is typically the case that Wisdom literature eschews claims to divine revelation and speaks about God in terms of what is universally accessible - what is sometimes called 'natural theology'. How is it, then, that this particular example of Wisdom literature depicts a heavenly scene at the beginning and ends with a theophany? I would like to suggest that these elements in the book may not intended to be taken at face value, but are somewhat tongue in cheek. In Job 4:12-21, in fact, we have something of a parody of claims to supernatural revelation: Eliphaz offers a grandiose build-up, describing an experience that made his hair stand on end, only to follow it with a trite observation that reflects what others claim to know on the basis of observation and common sense. In light of this typical Wisdom perspective on claims to supernatural revelation, how might this shed light on the opening and closing sections of the book?

It certainly might be the case that the beginning and ending are later additions - after all, they refer to God as Yahweh, while the rest of the book does not. Nevertheless, it is at least possible to make sense of these parts of the book from the skeptical wisdom perspective. The opening chapters, in depicting the heavenly court, depict things that are never revealed to Job in the book. It thus seems unlikely that the book is suggesting that what goes on in the heavenly court explains human suffering, because then we would have expected God to say something about it at the end of the book. "You see, Job, I made a wager and thanks to you I won!" But the book doesn't go in that direction. The depiction of the heavenly court scenes, from a Wisdom perspective, are probably intended simply to indicate that there is more to what is going on in the universe and human suffering than we can tell from our human perspective. The message is presumably that we should avoid attempting to interpret human suffering, and in particular assuming that suffering results from blameworthy actions, as Job's "friends" assume.

My views on the final theophany have been influenced by Norman Habel's commentary on Job. Many have felt that the divine speech is somewhat disappointing, and at best largely irrelevant to Job's suffering. What, after all, do laying the foundations of the earth or feeding lion cubs have to do with anything? Isn't this all, as my colleague suggested, merely a red herring? Perhaps. But it should be noted once again that a claim to a genuine theophany in a book that truly represents the Wisdom tradition would be remarkable, and thus here too we should perhaps not take this at face value. In fact, the so-called theophany doesn't reveal anything that is not accessible to natural theology and a Wisdom perspective. The manifestation is a whirlwind, and the things mentioned are what we would call 'natural phenomena' today. The point of highlighting these things is not to provide a genuine divine revelation, but to emphasize the need for humility and awareness of the limitations of our human perspective in attempting to make sense of the world around us. This, after all, is the problem with Job's friends: they claim to have God, the world, Job, suffering and everything else wrapped up in a nice, neat theological package. The 'theophany' thus shows from nature that our claims to understand it all (including the sufferings of any given human individual) are arrogant and misguided. The desire to understand is a positive thing, but the belief that we have already understood (as all educators know) is a hindrance to learning. What sets Job apart is his willingness to revise his theology in light of his experience. This gets the seal of divine approval at the end of the book.

So why does the 'theophany' mention the things it does? On the one hand, it seems to represent a challenge to human beings with regard to complaints that this is not only not the 'best of all possible worlds' but is not even a particularly good one. The message of the first part of the 'theophany' could be summarized as follows: "If you think you can organize a world better than I have, go ahead!" In that sense, it strikes me that one could view the movie Bruce Almighty as the sequel to Job: in the movie, the person who complains about how God governs the world gets a chance to try to do it better (at least in the vicinity of Buffalo, New York). Job, on the other hand, who throughout the book used language that suggested he wanted to "take God to court" drops the case when the defendant finally "takes the stand".

The mention of mountain goats and the feeding of young lions also shows the problematic data of natural theology: what is from the perspective of lions divine provision would presumably seem to the goats instances of undeserved suffering! The book of Job is perplexing and intriguing in many ways, and I hope I have not given the impression that (in direct opposition to the spirit of the book) I can tie up all the loose ends and resolve all the problems. Nevertheless, I do think that contextualizing the book as a piece of ancient Wisdom literature that can be expected to view claims to divine revelation with suspicion, one can make positive sense of the book's message in a way that remains thought-provoking today.

(The above post originally appeared on my old blog, and was followed up with an ongoing exchange of e-mails between myself and the two other colleagues mentioned above. Those interested can find the continuation of the discussion there).

Group Of Intellectuals Negating Godless Atomism + Generic Atheism

I apologize for the somewhat lengthy title for this new movement ("Group Of Intellectuals Negating Godless Atomism + Generic Atheism"), and for the fact that it fails to produce an acronym. (Really, it doesn't, don't try). Earlier attempts to find a shorter name, such as Showing Atomism To Answer Nothing, also failed to produce an acceptable acronym.

But the name is not what is important, but what our movement stands for. All around the world, children are being indoctrinated with a godless philosophy in what should be science classrooms. Instead of learning true chemistry that agrees with sacred Scripture, children are being taught atomism. This has become possible because very few parents and concerned citizens today are aware that atomism is in fact not a true science, but a philosophy with its roots in the teachings of Greek philosopher Democritus. His teachings gave rise to Epicureanism, which shows they are fundamentally antithetical to religion, piety, and ethical behavior.

In every school the table of elements can be found displayed somewhere, influencing young minds so that, by the time they are taught the table's contents, they are already open to accept what they are told.

But there are some questions these modern-day atomists cannot answer. For instance, if molecules in fact come from atoms, then why does atomic theory teach that there are still atoms? It only takes common sense to defeat this godless philosophy. But all the practitioners of chemistry, who claim to be engaging in science, are so indoctrinated as to be blind to the alternatives.

It is the aim of this movement to draw attention to just such alternatives. What we propose be taught alongside atomism is a superior and truly scientific theory called "intelligent molecularism". Instead of claiming that the elements we see around us, such as air and water, can be subdivided into atoms, we claim that, in accordance with the teaching of Scripture, these elements are held together not by impersonal "atomic forces", but by the divine command (Hebrews 1:3). The elements, in our view, are "irreducibly composed" (IC for short).

We also advocate the addition of stickers to chemistry textbooks used in public school classrooms. These disclaimers will read:

"Atomic theory is only a theory. No one has ever seen an atom, nor the forces that are supposed to hold them together. This theory should be critically evaluated, and alternatives seriously considered".

The movement to free the minds of a new generation from godless chemistry has begun. Will you join us?

Rumors of Evolution's Death Have Been Greatly Exaggerated

In a recent post I directed readers to the many scientific papers on the web site of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. These illustrate the vibrancy of many scientific fields, including evolutionary biology.

In discussions on the Uncommon Descent blog, on the other hand (where it was refreshing to have William Dembski himself acknowledge up front that he does not believe in common descent), there is a close-knit community of people who declare that evolution is a dead field, even if most of those working in it refuse to admit it.

I was struck to find out that such claims of evolution's imminent demise have been around a long time - a really long time. One web site provides quotes making such claims going back to 1825! Yes, that is right - even before Darwin offered an explanation of a key mechanism driving evolution in The Origin Of Species, there were people proclaiming it was a dead-end avenue of investigation. For critics to say such things then may not be all that surprising - but for anyone to still be saying it certainly is.

Then again, some Christians have had not problem maintaining that something is still going to happen "soon" 2,000 years later, and so these claims of evolution's imminent demise could well persist for many more millennia. But then again, so will evolution...

Letting Go(d): Buddhism and Bultmann

Today I showed one of my classes the episode "Footprint of the Buddha" from the classic series The Long Search. The first time I watched it, I was particularly struck by one of the ways host Ronald Eyre summed up a key emphasis of Buddhism. He sits in a wooden chair and observes that if he sits there for a little while, he may be quite comfortable, but after 24 hours sitting in the chair he'd be in agony, after doing so for 24 years he'd be a cripple, and in 240 years he'd be bones - and the chair would probably not be in great shape either. And so, although things have the illusion of permanence when viewed in the present, nothing really is. In Buddhism, even the gods are transient, so how much more everything in this world? And if there is nothing in the world that one can cling to, then one is faced with only one alternative, an almost unthinkable one: letting go.

My first thought on hearing this summary of Buddhism was how very much it reminded me of Rudolf Bultmann's definition of faith (in keeping with the existentialist Christian tradition) as depending on nothing but God, as letting go of all so-called certainties, including doctrinal and religious ones, which turn out to be idols when we cling to them.

It is perhaps not surprising that those of us who have let go, who have surrendered, whether within the Buddhist or the Christian tradition, whether aware of particular teachers' and theologians' teachings and ideas or not, have shared a similar experience of being born again, of awakening or enlightenment. The experience itself is liberating and cathartic - and those of us who have had it are usually persuaded that it tells us something important about the nature of reality, even though the opinions on precisely what the experience offers in terms of concrete beliefs differs. That is as it should be, since letting go must include letting go of claims to certainty about such matters and the recognition that they are idols, or at least that they can become such if we fail to recognize them as being less than ultimate.

There is nothing to cling to. Do you have the courage to let go?

Scripture and Violence

An article in Nature earlier this year showed what many of us have also encountered in the classroom: reading violent Scripture makes violence seem acceptable to the reader. At least, in my experience, it makes readers who would in any other context deplore actions, instead approve and justify them because they are found in Scripture.

I have not seen evidence that such people actually become more prone to violence. But they do at the very least learn the art of justifying things that do not fit with their usual moral and ethical sensibilities. And that, I feel, is a disturbing thing for one to learn from a religion.

So You Wanna Be A Provost?

PROVOST AND VICE PRESIDENT FOR ACADEMIC AFFAIRS

Butler University, one of the nation’s leading master’s comprehensive universities, invites applications and nominations for the position of Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs.
A vibrant university, Butler offers students, faculty, staff and the broader community an array of stimulating intellectual opportunities and inspiring cultural activities. Butler is committed to providing personalized liberal and professional education to 3,900 undergraduate and 500 graduate students in five colleges (Liberal Arts & Sciences, Pharmacy & Health Sciences, Education, Business Administration, and Fine Arts). The 290 full-time faculty members work closely with students both inside and outside the classroom. Extensive internship and service opportunities are made possible by Butler’s location five miles from downtown Indianapolis, the thirteenth largest city in the United States. Indianapolis is home to world-renowned museums, a major symphony orchestra, numerous amateur and professional sports events and a diverse and increasingly global population. Learn more about Indianapolis at http://www.indy.org/.

The Provost is the chief academic officer of the University, responsible for guiding the academic direction of the institution and ensuring the quality of programs and faculty. The Provost oversees the development, review, and implementation of academic policies in consultation with the Faculty Assembly; coordinates the recruitment, evaluation, and retention of faculty and academic staff; has budgetary responsibility for academic programs and resources; maintains the cycle of program reviews; and solicits funds for academic programs and facilities.

The successful candidate must:

• have an earned doctorate and a record of achievement commensurate with appointment as a tenured professor in a discipline offered at Butler


• have demonstrated the ability to lead collaboratively, a history of maintaining open and collegial relationships, and a reputation for fairness and equity


• be an effective manager of resources, display creativity and flexibility, and not be afraid to try new things


• have demonstrated experience, complex understanding and commitment to promoting diversity and inclusiveness among faculty, staff and students


• have prior successful experience in academic administration

Butler is committed to developing a diverse pool of applicants and encourages the application and nomination of women and people of color. Letters of interest should include a curriculum vitae and names of five references. Review of applications and nominations will begin in October. An electronic version of applications is required and may be addressed to:

Drs. William Templeton and Levester Johnson
Co-Chairs, Provost Search Committee
c/o Ellen Clark (eclark@butler.edu)

Francisco J. Ayala

The work of Francisco J. Ayala in both biology and theology is gaining significant attention around the blogosphere. William Dembski has offered a critical review of Ayala's book Darwin's Gift: To Science and Religion (which I also reviewed on my blog a while back). The Panda's Thumb blog also has an entry on the book. Of course, neither Ayala's work in biology nor his engagement with theology is new to the web or in general.

Anyone who might simply read a review like Dembski's and dismiss Ayala's contribution really ought to visit the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and read some of Ayala's work in the sciences first hand. Just search for "Ayala". Indeed, anyone who thinks that the majority of scientists are simply deceived by ideology must never have visited such sites, where there is continuous stream of papers on research into biological evolution that are intelligent, well-written, and show clearly that, rather than being a "spent force", evolution is an exciting area of ongoing research that is extremely fruitful.

Intelligent and fruitful theological discussion of the intersection between mainstream science and religion continues to occur and be productive, largely apart from the ID crowd and certainly not in ways that presuppose that framework. The Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences has web pages for several conferences that include reading materials that are useful and are freely shared on their web page.

I draw attention to all these online resources in an attempt to highlight the fact that, while movements like Intelligent Design continue to garner much attention (following their manifesto of self-promotion quite carefully), the really fruitful discussions between mainstream religion and science is happening in a much more low-key fashion, which does not usually get it the attention that controversy would. But that is where the really significant stuff is happening, outside the limelight, in a fashion that displays the courtesy and creativity one would expect from those genuinely seeking the truth - whether in religion or in science.

The Darwin Code

I'll bet that many young-earth creationists and proponents of intelligent design are kicking themselves for having been beaten to the punch by Dan Brown and having their own argument used against Christianity. If there is one feature that young-earth creationism and intelligent design have in common, it is that they must both posit a conspiracy to indoctrinate people and cover up the truth. That is the only way to explain why not only most people but most scientists in relevant areas of expertise cannot see the logic of their arguments. (Some atheists, of course, make a similar argument about religion).

It would make a great novel. Darwin left codes in The Origin of Species that show how he was involved in a secret society aimed at undermining the foundations of Christianity and morality. When a young biologist involved in the intelligent design movement is murdered, a coded message he left behind is a clue to the conspiracy he had uncovered. A Christian investigator is on the trail, with a skeptical agnostic side-kick who comes around to the truth by the end of the book. It would be a best-seller, and I almost wish I had the time to write it - I could use the money. But like The DaVinci Code, it would not merely be fiction, it would ride roughshod over the historical evidence.

It is perhaps quote-mining that most clearly shows the self-contradictory character of such conspiracy claims. Most if not all the major biologists in the world would have to be involved in the conspiracy, and yet supposedly these individuals also write things that show evolution to be a "theory in crisis" (when they are quoted selectively out of context, of course). Why doesn't the secret society behind it all not eliminate such rogue elements that are supposedly disclosing the truth? One cannot have a conspiracy and at the same time claim that those involved in it acknowledge evolution to be problematic. You really have to pick one or the other and stick with it if you are to make a case that at least has an air of plausibility about it.

But perhaps Intelligent Design doesn't need such selective quotes. Perhaps it just needs Mulder and Scully to come back and investigate things...

On Millstones and Stumbling Blocks

In response to a comment I left on William Dembski's Uncommon Descent blog, someone made an allusion to the Biblical language of having a millstone around one's neck. The reference, of course, is to Mark 9:42/Luke 17:2/Matthew 18:6, where it says "whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in Me to stumble, it would be better for him to have a heavy millstone hung around his neck, and to be drowned in the depth of the sea." Presumably in this individual's thinking, by suggesting that Intelligent Design arguments are unpersuasive and unscientific, I am causing people to stumble.

I would like to suggest that I am doing the opposite. It was Rudolf Bultmann who famously identified the challenge of the cross as not only the central component of the Christian message, but as the one stumbling block that those who are confronted with the Christian message must encounter. His chief concern in much of his theological writing was that many systems of Christian thought place other stumbling blocks in the way of people who need to encounter the Christian message, so that they may never be confronted with its essential core challenge. Bultmann had in mind elements of a prescientific worldview in general, but certainly the suggestion that, in order to be a Christian, one must accept young-earth creationism or intelligent design, is not unrelated to this. To require this is to do precisely what Bultmann warned about, to make rejection of evolution a necessity. To do that is to require a sacrifice of intellect on the part of scientists and other individuals well-informed about the sciences, and in so doing, hinder them from encountering the true challenge of the Christian Gospel.

I would suggest that, if anyone should be worried about millstones, it is those who are adding an additional requirement alongside the challenge of the cross as an essential part of the Christian message. When intelligent people then presume that Christianity is not for them because of this, the individuals who link the Gospel to ideas such as Intelligent Design will have been guilty of causing people to stumble, not in the way that all must stumble when they encounter the challenge of the cross, but in a way that is not even necessary, whether considered from the standpoint of the Bible, theology, or science. My aim, for what it is worth, is to keep the challenge of the Christian message from being obscured by what most Christians would acknowledge are non-essentials. Sure, those who are adherents of Intelligent Design may wonder how anyone intelligent could be a theistic evolutionist (and I assure them, the feeling is generally mutual), but most of them would not deny for this reason that those individuals are in fact Christians. That being the case, it is clear that these are non-essentials. This is not to say that they are unimportant. But they are not compulsory, and therefore to link them to the Christian message as though they were is ultimately to undermine the Gospel.

"That's Not Me": More on Bionic Women

There is much more to be said about the new series Bionic Woman (which should, perhaps, be called "Bionic Women" in the plural, since it features two main characters who are bionically enhanced females). In the scene where Jamie and Will have sex, at one point she says "That's not me". We needn't speculate as to what he was touching at that point. The deeper issue is whether replacing limbs, eyes, and other organs makes us "less us". The classic, very accessible treatment of this in philosophy is the famous piece entitled "Where Am I?" by Daniel Dennett. It explores the usual "brain in a vat" scenario, but takes it much further. Returning to Bionic Woman, the issue of female enhancement and self esteem is a prominent aspect of the series so far - from Sarah Corvin, who clearly has issues with her self esteem ("Tell me that you love me") and has continued to make "improvements" to herself, to the girl in the car who thought it is cool that a girl can do something like run incredibly fast. Issues of feminism and self-esteem are important ones in our era, when there seems to be a vibrant industry offering women the opportunity to have surgery that will enable them to live up to ridiculous ideals regarding body shape, breast size, and so on. Probably many who watched the original series grew up assuming that by 2007, women would no longer feel the need to do such things nor be pressured by society in that direction. So one thing the series does is to ask how far we have come, and how far we've failed to come, since the original was made.

On his personal blog, Mark Goodacre laments the fact that Bionic Woman (unlike its 1970s predecessor) is not a family show. The same can be said of the re-created Battlestar Galactica. I am somewhat torn myself - on the one hand, a series that is not even trying to be kid-friendly can explore subjects and go places that would otherwise be off limits. On the other hand, I fear for the next generation if there are no serious science fiction shows that kids can watch too. On a related note, in my class on the Bible yesterday we discussed whether familiar Bible stories such as David and Goliath or Samson, and indeed the Bible in general, are child-friendly or appropriate for young audiences. Certainly editing is required to make them G-rated - and you'll want to keep them away from Judges 19 altogether until they are adults.

Let me conclude by just saying I like one of David Eick's hallmarks, the subtle tribute to the original series that he is remaking. I wonder how many people noticed that a helicopter was used during the first high-speed chase scene precisely because it allowed one to hear a sound as Jamie was running that paralleled the sound effect whenever bionics were used in the original series. Eick has shown through Battlestar Galactica that he makes serious television shows that address serious issues about our values in general, and not just about technology and ethics. After the first miniseries of BSG, some were still unconvinced. But hopefully the character of that other series as it progressed will be enough to draw viewers back to Bionic Woman and give it time to develop and show us what it can do. I for one am hopefully that we can look forward to bionically-enhanced television at its best!

The $50,000,000.02 Woman

I just finished watching the season premier of the new TV series on NBC, Bionic Woman. The title of this blog entry reflects the updating of the value of the original six million dollar woman to reflect inflation - plus me adding my "two cents" worth.

We've had various series that treat machine intelligences and people with seemingly miraculously enhanced abilities, even if the explanation is pseudo-technological (such as Heroes and The 4400). This is the first major series since Dark Angel, however, to genuinely offer what may rightly be called a cyborg (and one cannot help wondering if the choice of dark-haired actress Michelle Ryan for the new Jamie Sommers was influenced by Jessica Alba's role in that series).

As with David Eick's other recent recreation of a classic science fiction series from the 70s, Battlestar Galactica, Bionic Woman is not an attempt to retell the story of the original series The Bionic Woman. For those of us waiting for the new season of BSG to begin, it was refreshing to see not one but two familiar faces from that series (Starbuck and the Chief), the former promising to return regularly on the series. The new recreated Bionic Woman is darker, edgier (again like Battlestar Galactica), reminiscent in some ways of La Femme Nikita. In any current series involving government secrets, we expect the lines between the 'good guys' and the 'bad guys' to be at least somewhat blurry. This is not a bad thing - in studying the Ramayana recently for a class on South Asian Civilizations, I had the chance to reflect on how that great classic of the Indian tradition avoids such moralistic oversimplifications. Star Wars too does a great job of bringing the same theme to our attention.

One does not have to look beneath the surface of the new series to come into contact with the moral and religious overtones. As Jamie's boyfriend, bionics expert Will, says in an introductory lecture on bioethics, the question regarding enhancement technologies is "When is it OK to intervene in God's work?" Few if any today would have objections to glasses, contact lenses, or laser eye surgery. Prosthetics are fine, and we seem to be willing to go a step further and allow breasts, for example, to be enlarged. I doubt there is anyone in the world with an e-mail account who does not receive frequent spam offering them the opportunity to increase the size of organs they have and others they do not (or rather, they do, but because of their gender most have no interest in enlarging them). What would be wrong, then, in simply making improvements for their own sake? Why allow interventions to correct our vision but not to improve it?

Such ethical questions are pressing as technological possibilities develop with breathtaking speed. The character Will says at one point that "technology is at the point where science fiction isn't science fiction any more." This may well be a statement of truth - military technology is usually advanced beyond what is disclosed to the public, and so it may indeed be the case that, somewhere in the world, there is technology related to human enhancement that is much more advanced than anything known to the general public.

Although the special effects aren't really Matrix-like, as some had anticipated, the series seems closer to the thinking of the Matrix films, steeped in cyberpunk and technological optimism, as opposed to the viewpoint of the Star Wars films, in which Darth Vader represents a shadow of a human self that has lost something of its soul as it has become "more machine than man".

Many of these recent series show that our deep-seated longing for superheroes with super-human abilities is not waning. Bionic Woman, however, has the potential to allow us to explore the ethical and spiritual side of a technology that is much closer to becoming science fact within the lifetimes of those who watch it. It is also off to a descent start, with characters that have the potential to enchant us and draw us into their stories, and keep us glued to the TV night after night. I just hope I won't have to find myself choosing between Bionic Woman and LOST!

Let Us Make Humanity In Our Image (update)

In an earlier post I mentioned the intriguing interpretation of the phrase "Let us make humanity in our image" in Genesis 1:26 as God addressing the animals and saying, in effect, "Let's collaborate and make something that is in the image of both the animal and God." I got hold of a copy of Friedman's Commentary on the Torah, to which Indulis Paics had attributed the interpretation, and failed to find it there. So until I hear otherwise, I will be crediting Rev. Paics himself with this interpretation.

On a related note, let me mention a book of "parables" by one of the other pastors at Martin Luther Church in Riga, Latvia. Juris Rubenis' books are well known in Latvia, but not so much outside. My colleague Paul Valliere recently translated some of Rubenis' writings, which are now available in English for the first time. The volume is entitled Finding God in a Tangled World: Thoughts and Parables.

Natural Explanations and the Inexplicable

I'm currently engaged in a discussion at the Uncommon Descent blog, on the subject of Intelligent Design and its status as science. I've decided to share one of my comments here, in the hope that it will stimulate further discussion of what I feel are important issues. The only other observation I will make is that the responses to my comments have been roughly parallel to those I experienced after posting on the Richard Dawkins forum. Internet forums are mere anecdotal evidence, but they certainly don't show any greater or lesser propensity of one side or the other either to insult those they disagree with, or to engage in intelligent conversation.

I have no problem with the possibility of an 'intelligent design' inference in principle. My principle concern is when this is used as a justification for asserting knowledge (i.e. that something was produced through intelligent agency) where admitting ignorance (i.e. we don't at present know how something came about) would seem more appropriate. The idea that the eye could evolve was once thought ludicrous. Now it can be shown to be plausible.

How do we know at what point we are dealing with something inexplicable in naturalistic terms, as opposed to merely as yet unexplained? I do not find the appearance of irreducible complexity a persuasive basis, because it has proved an inaccurate guide in the past (see the eye, again) and does not appear to me to be as readily quantifiable as Dembski's work maintains. To make a comparison, at what point does one give up investigating a criminal case and say that it not only has not been solved but cannot be solved in principle?

My own view is that once one is dealing with intervention by a personal agent (whether human or supernatural), one is not doing science in the traditional sense. To use an example, if a scientist is running an experiment, and a rival sneaks into his lab late at night and tampers with the apparatus, this would invalidate the experiment's aims, which is to study what happens in the absence of such interventions.

Of course, this also leads nicely to the question of how we detect intervention by a personal agent. One possibility would be to compare this individual's results with others conducted independently. The fact that his results were so different would probably lead him, quite logically, to suspect personal interventions.

If we find other planets at a comparable distance from their suns and with similar starting points, and they all fail to produce life through natural processes, that might be more suggestive of something other than natural processes having caused life on earth. But at present, we can only say 'One out of one people surveyed said...', which is not an adequate basis for assessing the probability or otherwise of life emerging through natural processes.

I am not sure why I am more comfortable than some other Christians seem to be with natural explanations for things. Perhaps it is because it seems that if one finds natural explanations threatening, then the fact that our individual form is shaped by DNA instructions rather than inexplicably by God's hand, that whirlwinds and lightning can be explained in meteorological terms - in short, all of science should be threatening to a religious viewpoint that seeks to hold on to a prescientific view of the world. For me, science has shown its ability to explain the world adequately, and I concur with most Christians that speaking about God is another way of looking at the same events, and not a competing explanation.

I also feel comfortable acknowledging ignorance where other religious believers seem to feel the need to be able to claim certainty. This seems to me to be fundamentally about humility, a key teaching of Christianity, but also about two very different approaches to religion and to God. Some feel that God is the one who inspires inerrant Scripture and gives his followers undefeatable arguments. For me, when I speak of God, it is to humbly point to an experience of a reality so great that it makes my arguments and attempts at comprehension laughably inadequate. For someone who acknowledges this in relation to the ultimate reality, admitting that one does not have all the answers about the workings of the universe is not that difficult.

Learn a Language

Anyone who commutes 20 minutes or more a day and is not regularly acquiring at least a basic working proficiency in other languages doesn't realize how much time they are wasting. The Pimsleur language courses are simply amazing - they are entirely audio-based, and they do the repetition for you, unlike VocabuLearn, In-Flight and other recorded methods that are utterly useless because most CD players will not allow you to rewind and repeat an individual word. Pimsleur courses involve so much repetition that it might seem monotonous at times. But anyone who has learned a language knows that such repetition is the key. Put them on in the car, or with headphones on your bicycle, and just listen. You'll be amazed how much sinks in, almost effortlessly.

The Pimsleur courses are prohibitively expensive, but they should be thought of as the audio equivalent of books published by E. J. Brill. They are priced for libraries to buy them, and those of us who are not independently wealthy will simply borrow rather than purchase them.

There are some languages (inexplicably including Arabic) that Pimsleur does not offer, or offers only a short set of lessons that will not take one very far. For some of these, the Teach Yourself Conversation series is probably the next best thing. It doesn't do as much repetition, but it is manageable for in-car use, and if one is able to start with a Pimsleur course, the Teach Yourself Conversation course will then take you a bit further.

Alas, there is unlikely to be a Pimsleur Coptic or Teach Yourself Syriac Conversation any time soon...

Cartoons on Evolution and Intelligent Design

Chris mentioned his favorite Doonesbury cartoon in his comment on my last blog entry, and so I thought I'd share it, but alas, it seems not to be working. So here is one of my favorites instead.

Monkeys and Typewriters on the Edge of Evolution

Seth Lloyd suggests that the appropriate analogy to the universe is monkeys typing a computers. Anyone who has ever let their monkey type at their computer will know that they can accomplish things, in a rather unpredictable (and sometimes irreversible) fashion. But let us stick with the traditional analogy. To make the analogy fit in relation to evolution, it is vital that we change a few things.

First, the typewriters should only have four keys, corresponding to the four "letters" in the DNA "alphabet". Second, it has to be clear that the "language" of DNA consists only of three-letter words. In other words, there are a total of 64 words in this language. Finally, it must be clear that all combinations must be considered legitimate words, since all of them can be found somewhere in the genome of living organisms.

If we really wanted the analogy to work, however, it would have to be clear that, if we are discussing evolution, then the monkeys don't actually do the typing. The origin of DNA is not a subject evolutionary theory addresses; rather, it is about how DNA is replicated, changed, and transmitted. So the monkeys really ought to have blocks on a metal rod, each with the four letters on them. The monkeys can then twist and turn them (and perhaps at times break some off or slide some new blocks on), editing the genome rather than writing it from scratch, since that is what evolution does.

Still think evolution driven by random mutation and natural selection cannot work? This analogy, when modified to be closer to the actual situation of DNA, is a strong argument for rather than against the plausibility of this evolutionary mechanism. No one claims it is the only one (for instance, you can't explain peacock tail feathers without including sexual selection in the discussion), but it is a crucial one, and if this analogy is anything to go by, then it should work just fine.

Michael Behe is one of the few people in the intelligent design movement with qualifications in a relevant field. But he recycles this analogy without making it closer to the real-life situation (see The Edge of Evolution, pp.104-106). This is not surprising. Anyone who has read the "Wedge Strategy" document will know one thing for certain about intelligent design: it has its mind made up from the outset, and there is no room for actually testing and assessing the validity of its "hypothesis" in its 20-year strategic plan. This isn't science. Science also cannot determine in advance how long it may take to solve a particular problem or answer a particular question. And so Behe's complaint that, even though the scientific had ten whole years to explain the origins of the bacterial flagellum in evolutionary terms, they had failed to do so, is utterly ridiculous.

It is also untrue, or at least no entirely true. Certainly there is no comprehensive treatment of every aspect. But there is a wonderful book (available to many of us through netLibrary via our local public or university library) called Why Intelligent Design Fails: A Scientific Critique of the New Creationism, which shows that significant progress has been made on this subject.

Supporters of Intelligent Design are free to forego the many modern medications and treatments for disease which are available only because scientists were persistent in their pursuit of explaining that which previous generations had been unable to, if they object to such investigations in principle. I, for one, will gladly accept the insight science has to offer, and not only selectively, accepting the medical insights but picking and choosing in other areas. Like most religious believers, I find information from the sciences to be at times challenging, at times extremely helpful, and at times awe-inspiring, but always something to be welcomed, studied, understood, and reflected on.

The Force Among Us: Discussion of Star Wars and Religion

On October 7th at 9pm Eastern Time there will be an online "episode", connected to the documentary The Force Among Us, about religious themes in Star Wars. It should be interesting!

Poverty and Worship

In my Sunday school class yesterday we reached the story of Mary (only identified as such in the John 12) anointing Jesus with a very expensive perfume (one wonders if her taste for perfumes that cost roughly a year's wage was the reason Mary seems to have still been unmarried). In the Gospel of John this is not, as in Mark, an anointing beforehand for burial, since Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus will provide Jesus with the honorable burial that he deserves, and which according to Mark he didn't receive.

This difference between John and other sources seemed less crucial a point of discussion that the statement of Jesus that "the poor you will always have with you". When I first read those words, I took them to mean that, in general, concern for the poor should take a lower priority than worship. I now take a different view of the meaning, primarily because it seems that the words attributed to Jesus are an allusion to Deuteronomy 15:11. When combined with the story from other Gospels (which John seems to have known, even if not directly from one of them in written form), the impression one gets is that concern for the poor remains as central a concern as ever - it is more central in both Testaments than many contemporary Christians do justice to.

Jim Wallis uses the image of modern conservative Christians having a "Bible full of holes" in his book God's Politics. Wallis refers to a group of seminary students who did a search for all the references to poverty and surrounding issues in the Bible. Realizing just how many thousands there were, and how neglected these are, they decided to make the point symbolically. Since if one persistently ignores texts from the Bible they might as well not be there, these students cut out all these two thousand references. This shows in a provocative way what many people who call themselves Christians actually have: a Bible full of holes, not in the sense of full of problems (although I am not denying that), but in the sense of full of passages that they ignore. Indeed, fundamentalists ignore the problems, and so both meanings of 'full of holes' overlap for them, but they also ignore other parts, the ones where God criticizes the ancient equivalents of the Americans - since we as a nation are wealthy and not only are not doing all that we can to help the poor, but we ignore the fact that our national and corporate policies are actually in many ways responsible for poverty both in our nation and in the wider world.

The point of the story in John is that that was a unique opportunity to do something for Jesus when he was physically present with his followers, something that custom required to be done but which, according to Mark, was not done. What John does in his own story of Jesus' burial is to give him in narrative the burial his followers were unable to give him in historical fact, but wished they could have.

Child Sacrifice In The Bible

There is an interesting irony in the fact that a tradition that apparently once practiced child sacrifice has evolved into one in which (in certain segments, at least) is adamant in protecting the rights even of the not-yet-born. The Bible's teaching on the unborn is somewhat ambiguous. Exodus 21:22-25 appears to make a distinction between causing a miscarriage (treated as a misdemeanor and punished with a fine) and harm to the mother, although the term of 'miscarriage' could refer to a premature birth, in which case the language of "no further harm" would apply to both child and mother. The distinction is problematic, however, since a premature birth almost always died. At any rate, Numbers 5:11-31 seems to depict the only actual reference to human-induced abortion in the Bible, and there it is mandated rather than prohibited. It might be easy, on this basis, to simply argue that "Bible-believing Christians" should be pro-abortion. But I'd rather suggest that any ethical decisions we make should be based on our current understanding of the fetus' development in the womb, rather than on texts from a pre-scientific age.

At any rate, the Bible's view of child sacrifice is quite clear, in spite of the evidence for development. The earliest tradition may be reflected in Exodus 22:29-30, which seems (in spite of arguments to the contrary) to mandate offering one's firstborn to God. Other laws allowed for a price for redemption to be paid instead, but that has all the hallmarks of a later legislation aimed at reforming this earlier one. It is interesting to compare Ezekiel 20:25-26 and Jeremiah 19:5 on whether God wanted this done, but Ezekiel seems to indicate that he understood it to have been God himself that tested Israel with "laws that were not good". I wonder what an inerrantist would make of that.

It is as a response to this practice, as I've suggested before, that one ought to read the story of Abraham's near-sacrifice of Isaac. If we go back far enough in any society, we will find practices and views that are abhorrent from the standpoint of our modern sensibilities. This is an encouraging experience - our moral sensibilities are improving, and in many societies that once explicitly endorsed the enslavement of people of a particular race, one nowadays will be challenged for even making a racist joke, never mind actually endorsing slavery. The Abraham story is to be appreciated as one of our only sources of evidence about the steps an ancient people took to change an abhorrent practice. It is for such accomplishments, and not for the common atrocities of ancient societies, that the Biblical literature ought to be appreciated.

Teaching the Genesis Creation Stories

There is an interesting entry on the Higgaion blog on the subject of teaching the creation stories in a non-literal fashion. What I generally ask my students is what conclusion the presence of a talking animal in a story in any other book or collection would lead them to conclude about its genre. I then follow up by asking why such common sense considerations are sometimes bracketed out by people reading the Bible. Perhaps I should add a further line of questioning: What would God have had to include in order to persuade you that this text is something other than a historical report? A big neon sign at the top of the page? The details in the story ought to be enough - such as the fact that the main character is called "Human" (although this is obscured in most translations by treating adam as though it were a proper name in Hebrew).

When read as a story about everyone, then something very interesting happens: it becomes clear that it is a true story, not in the sense of a factual or historical one, but in the sense of one offering an insightful analysis of human nature.

When I ask my students what would happen if one day a big red button with a sign above it that says "Do Not Push" suddenly appeared in a building on campus, they are unanimous: someone would push it. I also ask them when they first realized they were naked, and none can identify the moment. For such universal experiences that cannot be pinpointed and analysed, mythical language is what human beings turn to to speak about these things. The story is about loss of innocence, an experience of human being, and not merely of "Adam".

I also point out the irony of reading the story as though it is about two historical individuals in the past rather than about us. In Genesis 3, blame-shifting and finger-pointing accompany the loss of innocence and the breakdown of relationships that follows. Could there be anything more ironic than a reading of this story that uses it to shift blame? - to say, in effect, "If it hadn't been for Adam and Eve, I wouldn't be in this mess. It is all their fault!"

The Brick Testament

Looking for something to liven up your powerpoints in a course on Biblical literature? Don't forget to incorporate scenes from The Brick Testament, that well-known retelling of (usually some of the more graphic and thus neglected parts of) the Bible in LEGO. Tomorrow's class is on holy war, and the site has plenty to offer that is relevant to that theme. Obviously a G-rated version would be great for kids, but that is emphatically not what this site offers. On Wednesday my students will be thinking explicitly about what parts of the stories of David & Goliath and Samson they don't remember from their encounter with it as kids, and usually the decapitation of Goliath is high up the list. The Bible is not children's literature, and so we shouldn't be surprised if even the version in LEGOs is quite graphic.

For some reason, while translation into LEGOs doesn't tone it down too much, translation into vegetables does...

Negative Images of God in the Teaching of Jesus

This post ties in closely to my earlier one on the counter-cultural teachings of Jesus (as well as my more recent one on Jesus' sense of humor). I am struck by how many images are used for God or God's kingdom in the Gospels that would have had negative connotations in the original Galilean/Jewish historical and cultural context of that time. I will simply list them (and there may be others I may have missed):

• leaven
• mustard (a weed, albeit a useful one)
• an unjust judge
• an absentee landlord (gosh, they were hated back then)
• a landowner who doesn't pay laborers fairly
• a master who punishes a servant who protects rather than risks his wealth
• a sneaky and corrupt steward
• a person who finds treasure in a field, doesn't tell the owner, and buys the field to get it
• a Samaritan

Given their controversial character, it is worth asking whether anyone but Jesus is likely to have introduced these into the tradition. Yet often disciples can seek to outdo their mentors, even in controversial directions, so one cannot necessarily presume authenticity. Such concerns aside, this trajectory of counter-cultural images for God that runs through the Gospel tradition deserves study in its own right. Using such negative images as a way of challenging the identification of God with a culture's values is very striking. Any suggestions on images that might be used to give a sense of the shocking character of these sayings in a modern context? Are there other similar sayings that I have missed, that deserve to be included here?

Stories of Miraculous Births

As I read the Buddha-karita (attributed to Asvaghosha) again in connection with my class on South Asian Civilizations, I cannot help but wonder what it would have been like if our only accounts of the birth of Jesus had been stories from centuries later, such as are found in the apocryphal infancy gospels (e.g. the Infancy Gospel of Thomas). The comparison between such materials in the Christian tradition, and the accounts of the birth of the Buddha (Gautama), would be much more a case of comparing like with like. Nevertheless, the comparison does show how ancient traditions in general tended to highlight the significance of an individual by making their birth more and more miraculous, even though in both cases the story ends up being in tension with the apparently mundanely human origins of both Jesus and Siddhartha Gautama as adults.

It is unfortunate that our good fortune to have relatively early sources in the case of Jesus is used by some to make unjustified claims of certainty in a fundamentalist fashion, rather than to engage in serious historical research. The less elaborately developed miracle stories in the Gospel accounts of Jesus' infancy are not proof that they are straightforward historical narratives, but simply evidence that they were less far along in the process of development that led to the very similar elaborations found in both Buddhist and Christian traditions several centuries after their births, as their significance was considered with the benefit of hindsight.

Jesus' Sense Of Humor

There are extensive studies of subjects such as irony in the Gospels, and scholars regularly make comparisons between the parables and jokes. But are any of them actually funny? That is a question that is harder to answer, since jokes often lose all semblance of funniness when translated into another language or another cultural setting.

Nevertheless, there are a few strong candidates for genuinely humorous sayings of Jesus. For instance, although we only have the words recorded, I could imagine Jesus enlisting the assistance of one of his disciples to act out a particular parable in Laurel and Hardy fashion, namely the saying about the man who has what in a modern idiom would be a "telephone pole" in his eye trying to assist someone with a "splinter" in his eye (Matthew 7:3-5). The ducking and swinging arm to reflect the "beam" in the eye could certainly be entertaining.

An even more clearly humorous parable is the one about the wedding feast (in Luke 14:16-24). The invited guests' excuses for not coming are seriously lame, and it is helpful to find modern equivalents in order to make this clear. One is asked to come (on short notice, but that was normal in this historical-cultural setting) and objects in what is the equivalent of saying "I've just bought a house on eBay and I need to go see whether it really does have bathrooms". The next says in effect "I've just bought a used car over the phone and I need to go see if it has wheels". The last member of the trio is the funniest - sometimes what is not said is as important as what is said. He has just gotten married and so... Unlike the other two, there is no second phrase "I have to do X" to justify the final statement, "I cannot come". What is left out we have to imagine - perhaps in a modern retelling we'd have the man hem and haw: "Sorry, I'm on my honeymoon and my wife and I....I mean, we're busy....In fact, we were just about to....Look, I can't come, OK?"

I could go on and explore the imagery of an individual who plants a tiny mustard seed and ends up with a tree with birds in it, and the woman who puts a tiny bit of leaven into enough flour to supply an army and finds to her surprise that the whole thing has become dough and risen (presumably flowing out of doors and windows). But I think the few instances mentioned are sufficient to at least suggest that Jesus' sense of humor could be a legitimate area of scholarly study.

In some instances, as with any humor, the stories people already knew would have been a key part of the "joke", and so we have little hope of getting it. But I suspect some of Jesus' stories sounded to his contemporaries a bit like the following: "Whoever hears my words and does not put them into practice is like the little pig who built his house of straw. The big bad wolf came along and huffed and puffed, and that little pig met an unfortunate end. But whoever hears my words and puts them into practice is like the little pig who built his house of bricks..."

Let me conclude with a modern equivalent of what Jesus apparently said at the end of many of his teaching sessions: If you've got ears, use 'em!

Trying On Other Religions For Size

A student of ours at Butler University, Diane Hardin, undertook a very interesting religion project as part of her studies. Unfortunately I haven't been able to figure out how to include the clip directly in this post in any other way, so here is a link to the clip that appeared on the local news:

Butler Student Experiences Other Religions for Learning You'll need a version of Windows Media Player 7 or higher to view the video. If you need to download it, go to http://www.microsoft.com/windows/mediaplayer/en/default.asptarget=_blank The video player is supported by Microsoft IE 5.0 and above.

If that doesn't work, here is the address of the TV station's web page

http://www.wishtv.com/Global/category.asp?C=1785

Facts and Opinions

I came across a great quote on the Evolving Thoughts blog that sums up in a single sentence what I've been trying to get across to students for a long time in a less pithy and far wordier fashion. Here's the quote:

"you are entitled to your opinions, but you are not entitled to your own
facts"

That just puts it so well - and fits well with what I've said about Hebrews 11:1. It says that faith is the evidence of things not seen - it does not say that faith allows one to pretend evidence doesn't exist. That is a big difference. What distinguishes the often diverse hypotheses of mainstream science and scholarship from fundamentalism and other fringe movements is an awareness that one has to do justice to the evidence, and not simply rewrite history to suit one's presuppositions. This is not to say that even among credible scholars our presuppositions don't get in the way, and clearly it is often possible to interpret evidence in more than one way. But it is the desire to do justice to the available data that separates scholarship from wishful thinking and science from pseudo-science.

Atheist Meditation & the Problem of Defining "Religion"

Those who are not scholars of religion are often unaware of just how hard it is to define religion as a word/concept. While many people would immediately begin by talking about "God" in some sense, such a definition would leave Buddhism excluded, since although many forms of Buddhism do acknowledge the existence of deities, they are on the whole largely irrelevant to Buddhism's core beliefs and emphases.

By way of illustration of the complexities of the issue, I mention that Sam Harris, the well-known atheist author, is a practitioner of meditation. It seems to me that one reason many atheists declare themselves opposed to "any and all religion" is that it sounds good, like "believing the whole Bible" - far more interesting and impressive-sounding than "I am opposed to the concept of God in classical theism". But a second reason is the understanding of "religion" exclusively in terms of "Western traditions". I wonder whether, if the breadth of the concept of religion were more widely known, such generalizations would continue to be made.

For some discussions and examples of the problem of defining religion, try visiting here, here and here.

Let Us Make Human Beings In Our Image

The plural used at a decisive moment in the creation account in Genesis 1 has puzzled commentators for millenia. I learned today of a striking suggestion made in Thomas Friedman's Commentary on the Torah. Who were the most recently mentioned characters in the story immediately before the plural? The animals! It is thus possible to suggest that God addresses the animals and involves already-existing life in the creative process (just as the sea and land were involved in bringing forth life in the first place), so that humanity is "created from animals", and so that we are in the image both of the animal and of the divine. I consider it not just a very creative interpretation, but one that does justice to both the text and to our scientific knowledge to an extent that is truly remarkable.

So I am yet again indebted to Rev. Indulis Paics (who visited my religion and science class today and mentioned this) for a helpful and striking new insight.

Biblical Inerrancy and Theological Dishonesty

Biblical inerrancy is a concept that is at best meaningless and at worst dishonest. The full version of statements on this subject normally affirm the inerrancy of the original autographs - i.e. the versions that the authors of the Biblical writings penned or dictated. To accept this, one must take a leap of faith, since none of us has ever seen one of these original manuscripts. But on what basis can one do so? It cannot be on the basis of the Bible: On what basis could one take the word of our divergent manuscripts that they stem from an inerrant original? The Bible, at any rate, nowhere affirms its own inerrancy. Indeed, from the perspective of many theologians, such an affirmation is idolatry, attributing to writings that are clearly human creations attributes that are prerogatives of God alone. But at any rate, many of us who have needed to do so have signed statements that use the term 'inerrancy', knowing we could do so without ever being in danger of being proven wrong, or of it having implications for how one views the manuscripts we actually have.

Hopefully it will be clear from the proposed amendment to the Evangelical Theological Society's doctrinal statement what many of us already knew: adherence to a concept of Biblical inerrancy does not lead people to interpret that infallible Bible in the same ways. I was particularly interested to see Terry Mortenson's name on the list of proponents of the amendment, since Mortenson, when he spoke at Butler University, showed himself to not actually know the Biblical languages. It is those who are least aware of the realities and complexities of Biblical studies who most strongly desire affirmations of the clear-cut nature of their faith.

I have an alternative to suggest for ETS: Why not be honest and acknowledge that, rather than being an organization committed to the Protestant principle of Sola Scriptura, this will be an organization committed to historic Christian orthodoxy? After all, if Protestants are honest, the Bible did not come pre-packaged, and so one cannot talk about the authority of Scripture without raising the question of the authority of the church, which decided on the contents of the canon. Otherwise, accept that principles of Protestant faith do not guarantee agreement on doctrinal matters. If one cuts off doctrinal authority at the Bible, one is pretty much guaranteeing that one will repeat the debates that followed in the centuries thereafter, since it was the diversity of information in the Bible, combined with the questions the Biblical writings leave unanswered, that led to those debates and the church councils that sought to address them.

The irony of Biblical inerrancy is that it attributes to the Biblical authors what Protestants refuse to attribute to popes: the ability to be genuinely fallible human beings who nonetheless can speak or write at times in an inerrant fashion when God wills it for them to produce Scripture or authoritative ecclesial pronouncements. It is not only much simpler to affirm that the Bible is the work of human authors whose humanity in all its aspects and limitations has left its mark on what they produced, it is also what the evidence of the Bible itself most naturally would lead us to conclude, if we are talking about the evidence we actually have, and not some perfect autographs that no one has seen. Evangelicals mock Mormons when they claim that their additional Scriptures existed on golden tablets that can no longer be located. Are fundamentalist affirmations about inerrant original autographs really that different?

Our Daily Bread

I often wonder how many people who say the Lord's Prayer around the world, or simply use the phrase "our daily bread", are aware of the fact that the word rendered 'daily' is of uncertain meaning. The Greek word epiousion may well mean 'daily', but 'for tomorrow' and 'necessary for existence' are also possibilities. This is yet another example of how the great efforts of translators and scholars to make sense of the text and give readers who know only English access to it smooths over a vast terrain that is intricate and complex, and often bumpy.

What I consider even more interesting is the question of what it means for people in places like North America and Western Europe to pray for "daily bread". There is a wonderful, thought-provoking treatment of this topic in Maurice Wiles' book God's Action in the World. I presume most of us do not expect God to shower manna from the skies in any literal sense. But what do we mean when we use such language? Are we asking for divine intervention to keep the breadmakers and delivery truck drivers from going on strike? That by the time we get to the supermarket, they won't be out of Wonder brand and force us to settle for a no-frills variety that tears when you try to spread peanut butter on it?

Jeffrey Gibson read a paper at a recent SBL conference that was very helpful in addressing this topic. He suggests that the 'petition' was in fact an expression of thankfulness for what is provided, rather than a request for what is not, along the lines of the similar phrase in the Jewish Scriptures. This would fit well with the neighboring 'petitions' which also imply aligning oneself with the divine will, more than asking for a direct intervention. After all, how is God's name hallowed, if not when those who bear it act uprightly (see Ezekiel 36:22-23)? What does Matthew say it means for God's kingdom to come? That God's will is done on earth as it is in heaven. So in a similar way, as Maurice Wiles also suggests, to pray for daily bread is, for us at least, an expression of gratitude for what we have, and a recognition that others who pray this prayer will go without unless we work for justice on a global scale in our world.

Thinking about the reference to bread in the Lord's Prayer is helpful in reflecting on ideas like divine action more generally. On my way back from a conference in Romania, I missed a connection, which had the pleasant effect of leaving me with nothing to do but wander around New York City with my family. I would not claim, however thankful I might be for the opportunity, that this was divine providence. To do so would be to claim that God has caused the chaos that currently dominates JFK airport, and was responsible for planes not being able to get to their gates after landing, and so on. I doubt we were the only ones who missed connections that day - was everyone to whom such things happened supposed to get somewhere late? To envisage this degree of divine micromanagement would seem to leave no room for free will, but more than that, it is a troubling impression one gives of God if one claims that God made everyone on a particular plane late, just so as to benefit one or even a small handful of individuals. I have long been troubled by those who proclaim God's goodness when they alone survive an accident or remain healthy, implying (although never explicitly asserting) God's badness to those around them.

Because of our knowledge of the causal nexus of explanations connected to events in our lives and our universe, if we use traditional religious language, it often leads us to use two ways of speaking about the same events. Was it God's time to take an individual home, or was it a result of diet and lack of exercise over the course of a lifetime? Or can it be both? As we seek to express traditional faith in a scientific worldview, it is important to think about these questions.

The Counter-Cultural Teachings Of Jesus

The criterion of dissimilarity is particularly useful when looking at the parable in the Gospels usually known as the "parable of the talents" (although it is Matthew, writing for a wealthy urban audience, who changes the value of the money entrusted to the servants to this exorbitant amount). In an early Jewish-Christian Gospel not included in the New Testament, known as the Gospel of the Nazoreans, it is the one who buries that which was entrusted to him that is rewarded, and the one who invested it who is punished. This was in fact what would have been expected in that cultural context: the appropriate thing to do (as other sources confirm) was to bury that which was entrusted to you. This has been good news for archaeologists, who have found many such valuable items that were hidden in this way and never dug up again. It is because of our capitalist context that we assume that the one who seeks to take the money and make it grow is doing the right thing. In a context in which money lending and interest charging were regarded as dubious (and the latter in the Law of Moses was in fact illegal), the reverse was true.

It is far more likely that Jesus' words were domesticated to the cultural norm than vice versa. What then is the point of the parable? At its root level, it teaches that "God's ways are not our ways" and warns against identifying our cultural values as those of God. In this instance, it is difficult to know whether it is best to try to find an equally surprising equivalent in our own cultural context (a parable in which a servant institutes universal health care and is praised for it might have the appropriate effect in some conservative Christian contexts, for example), or to simply accept that the parable has accomplished its purpose and fulfilled its task, so that we now take for granted what was originally a new idea. "Use it or lose it" has become a commonplace.

This leads us to the topic of the infusion of Christian values in Western societies. It is easy to dismiss the relevance of Christianity (or of any religion, for that matter) when living in a society infused with its values, just as it is easy to talk about living in harmony with nature and denigrate science when living in a society in which science has eliminated many of nature's worst aspects, like polio and subsistence farming. Rev. Indulis Paic (at a public lecture yesterday evening) compared it to having sugar dissolved in one's coffee - it would be easy to persuade oneself that maybe coffee is sweet on its own and that sugar is unnecessary. But as one stops adding sugar but keeps refilling one's cup, the coffee will get increasingly bitter.

Perhaps in our time, these values themselves are the things that we might bury and hide away, rather than appreciating and utilizing. Mainstream Protestantism, to cite Indulis Paic again, has become very good at being self-critical, but less adept at presenting what it actually has to offer and what is positive about itself. What is the pound/talent that our theological traditions and our society are in danger of squandering? What is the message of this parable for our time?

Protestant Hinduism in the Bhagavad Gita

Among my favorite parts of the Bhagavad Gita (which I've been re-reading as I teach my course on South Asian Civilizations) are the images of panentheism and inclusive monotheism. Among my favorite lines are:

"all that exists is woven on me, like a web of pearls on thread" (7:7, tr. Barbara
Stoler Miller)

and

"When devoted men sacrifice to other deities with faith, they sacrifice to
me...however aberrant the rites" (9:23, tr. Barbara Stoler Miller)

Also very interesting, however, are the close parallels to Protestant ideas about grace and the priesthood of all believers. The Gita asserts that "for the discerning priest (brahmin), all of sacred lore (i.e. the Vedas) has no more value than a well when water flows everywhere" (2:46). Indeed, this goes further than the Protestant reformers did in relativizing not only the priests but even Scripture as mediators of authoritative teaching. Similarly, when it comes to "justification by faith", the following verses seem to closely parallel this Protestant Christian emphasis, even down to the order of justification, sanctification, and perhaps even "eternal security":

"If he is devoted to me, even a violent criminal must be deemed a man of virtue,
for his resolve is right. His spirit quickens to sacred duty (dharma), and he
finds eternal peace; Arjuna, know that no one devoted to me is lost" (9:30-31).

For those open to dialogue with and learning from other traditions, such points of intersection and similarity are useful starting points.

Let God Be True And Every Young-Earth Creationist A Liar

Is "creation science" science? The answer to this question becomes clear through a simple glance through the footnotes of John Whitcomb's classic The World that Perished. When he wrote the book, he avidly kept up to date with young-earth creationist publications, even ones self-published by their author, but his quotations from mainstream scientific sources (magazines rather than journals) were from the 1950s, whereas the book was published in 1973.

I have been asked more than once lately why there is so much controversy about evolution, and my answer has become increasinly cynical. It is a PR exercise. Evolution is about our ancestors. Genetics, on the other hand, is about us. For a Biblical literalist, the language of God knitting us together in our mother's womb ought to be regarded as at odds with our selves forming through natural processes according to a genetic blueprint. Why is this issue that is so directly relevant to us as individuals not a matter of controversy? Because the evidence is so clear cut and well known that trying to make room for the "God of the gaps" in this domain would fail. Evolution is chosen because most people are less well informed about it, and because significant amounts of deductive reasoning have historically been required to make the case for it.

But, as Francisco Ayala has helpfully pointed out, such an approach to evolution is not up to date on the latest scientific developments. Ayala writes: "Gaps of knowledge in the evolutionary history of living organisms no longer exist" (Darwin's Gift, p.79). Scientists are no longer dependent on fossils and paleontology in these matters, even though such evidence is still extremely useful. Just as DNA can accurately demonstrate degrees of relatedness between living individuals, and the distinctive heritage of the Jewish Cohanim, and can connect those willing to pay for family history DNA testing with a deeper historical stratum, so too can it show the degree of relatedness between ourselves and all other organisms whose genomes have been at least partially mapped. The same forensic evidence that opens and shuts criminal and paternity cases in a court of law is available for evolution. Evolution in the present day is an open and shut case.

Young-earth creationism, on the other hand, is as antithetical to science as anything could possibly be. It says, in effect, "everything happened through natural processes - except the stuff God did miraculously." Moreover, it claims that God created the earth and the universe to look not merely older than it is, but a specific age that is not its real age. If that is true, then the world we inhabit is designed to deceive us, and science is impossible. If you find the idea that you inhabit a computer-simulated illusion rather than a real world unpersuasive, you will most likely find young-earth creation an equally unattractive option.

Paul the Apostle famously wrote in Romans 3:4 "Let God be true, and every human being a liar". Young-earth creationists have been so busy focusing on the early chapters of Genesis, that they have failed to realize just how far they have departed from other Scriptural teachings such as this one.

Award for the Most Hypocritical Argument in the History of Creationism

I am reading parts of John C. Whitcomb's book The World That Perished which I included in this semester's readings for my course on religion and science. I want students to get a first-hand impression of what young-earth creationists have to say, as well as of their critics. In college "teaching the controversy" may be appropriate - provided it is used as an opportunity to show where evidence clearly points to a particular conclusion, rather than leaving students with the impression that all viewpoints are equally valid.

Whitcomb has the audacity at one point to suggest that the question of what effects a world-wide flood would have ought to be left up to appropriate experts. He writes, "Hydraulic engineers, who devote their professional lives to the study of water action, ought to be our authorities on this subject" (p.71). He then directs the readers to the expertise of the hydraulic engineer Henry M. Morris!

There might be less controversy over science in the world today if individuals such as Morris had stuck to their area of expertise, as Whitcomb suggests would be appropriate. The biggest problem is that individuals who have no knowledge of the Biblical languages or Biblical scholarship nevertheless feel they can pronounce on matters of Biblical interpretation simply because they feel strongly about it, and the same goes for evolution and many other subject.

Interested in knowing the facts about evolution? Read something by one of the world's eminent biologists. Interested in knowing about geology? Ask a geologist.

Interested in building a dam? Then you should ask Henry Morris.

Who Do My Opponents Say That I Am?

A new book will be appearing early in 2008 entitled Who Do My Opponents Say That I Am?: An Investigation of the Accusations Against Jesus (T&T Clark). This is an exercise in what has been called "Christology from the side", using outsiders' and opponents' views as a way of investigating the historical figure of Jesus. My own chapter will be on the accusation that Jesus was a "false prophet". I am particularly looking forward to reading Scot McKnight's chapter on Jesus as mamzer - I wonder how he will have interacted with my own rather different views on that subject.

I hope that others working in historical Jesus research will find the book useful - and will get their libraries to order copies, with the hope that it will eventually be reprinted in paperback at a price mere mortals can afford!

Christianity Without Resurrection?

Today in my Sunday school class (discussing John 11), I went off on a tangent to explain the background of Jewish and early Christian thinking about the resurrection. I always consider this important, since for most contemporary Christians, the afterlife is about 'going to heaven when I die' and not 'rising again on the last day'.

On the one hand, I think that it is important to be aware of (if not necessarily reassert in the same terms) the early Christian affirmation of resurrection, since it marked an important rejection of the negative view of bodily existence typical of many systems of Greek thought. On the other hand, there does seem to be at least one writing in the New Testament that thinks in terms of the soul's immortality rather than bodily resurrection. In the letter to the Hebrews, there is no obvious way to fit bodily resurrection into its system of thought. Jesus dies and enters the heavenly tabernacle, presents his sacrifice there, and sits down at the right hand of God. There is no room left, at least not in any obvious way, for Jesus to 'pick up his body' and 'take it along' at some point in the process.

Could there be Christianity without an afterlife at all? The only writing in the New Testament that, at the very least, gives it no explicit attention is the letter of James. There are certainly references to judgment, but there are such references in the book of Amos too, and yet in the latter they are very obviously judgments within history rather than in an afterlife. Could the letter of James be read in the same way? If so, this would provide explicit room within the range of acceptable diversity affirmed by the canon, for those who at least eschew focusing on the afterlife, if not necessarily rejecting the possibility outright.

The afterlife was of course a very late addition to Israel's thought, appearing in the Jewish Scriptures only in Daniel and perhaps a few other very late passages. Ecclesiastes 9:5 affirms the more usual view, although more explicitly than anywhere else. Affirmation of the afterlife (and more specifically resurrection) was a response to the problem of God's justice if those martyred from obeying him were never rewarded. For those trying to accept the challenge of the book of Job, and do what is right without seeking reward, questions of the afterlife are best set aside as at best irrelevant. The right thing is worth doing even if no one notices, even if no one ever gives us credit or praise. If God or people reward us in this life or another, it should be a pleasant surprise, and not something that is actively sought.

Being Good Without God

Bertrand Russell talks about morality as a motivation some people have for adhering to and promoting religious belief. It is a point made more recently by Richard Dawkins. There is certainly some room for criticism of the Christian tradition on this point. Although Matthew's moral universalization of the Golden Rule as the basis for divine judgment - "What you do unto others, God will do unto you" - may be progress compared to some other systems that are even more arbitrary, it is not as impressive as the sentiment expressed by Rabi'a, the Sufi mystic, in her famous prayer:

O my Lord, if I worship you from fear of hell, burn me in hell. If I worship
you from hope of Paradise, bar me from its gates. But if I worship you for
yourself alone, grant me then the beauty of your Face.

Can anyone doubt that this ideal of selflessness is better than a morality based on fear of punishment?

The idea that people will be good only if they fear punishment - whether from parents, the state and its authorities, or God - is deeply troubling, since it suggests that the populace is as immature morally as it is spiritually. Does one really need the threat of hell to keep husbands and wives from cheating on one another? Isn't the fact that you've made promises enough? Isn't the relationship that exists sufficient basis for ethical behavior? Isn't becoming the sort of person whose promise means nothing a harsh enough judgment?

I agree with Dietrich Bonhoeffer's suggestion that God wants mature children, able to live "before God, as though God were not there", able to get along without him. Arguments that religion or law or anything else are essential to keep us in line are not arguments anyone should make with pride. Rather they are self-indictments of which we should be deeply ashamed. As the book of Job hinted at long ago, our right and wrong actions don't affect God. They affect others, and ourselves. Anyone who doesn't find the consequences of their actions, and what their actions say about themselves, sufficient reason to act ethically, should think long and hard about what this says about the sort of people they are.

Evidence and Faith: The Creationist Paradox

There is a fundamental tension in young-earth creationism. It is claimed that there is evidence for not only creation but a young earth that anyone with an open mind will be persuaded by. Many other theologians and preachers, however, have found themselves speaking of a need for faith in order to perceive God's hand, whether in nature, in history or in personal circumstances. The puzzle is this: if God created things directly and recently in their present form, and was willing to provide evidence that he did so, then why would an omnipotent, omniscient (and perhaps also omnivorous) deity not inscribe "(c) God Year 1 Day 6" somewhere on the human person where modern microscopes could find it, in English (since God would have foreknown that all these debates would arise with Darwin and predominate in an English-speaking context). If God works in the way ancient peoples and modern young-earth creationists believe, then this is the sort of evidence we would expect. Indeed, such evidence is less dramatic than the sort provided in Biblical stories, with fire from heaven or parted seas annihilating enemies. Where is the shower of fossils and dinosaur bones to descend in judgment and wipe out those pernicious scientists who dare to support evolution merely because all the available evidence supports it?

If, on the other hand, seeing God at work in the universe requires faith, then the attempt to provide clear-cut evidence that so-called creation scientists engage in is not only doomed to failure, it is fundamentally misguided. Of course, there are plenty of other options as well - among them, that God worked through natural processes in a way that is not detectable, except perhaps in the sense that one can intuit it. But be that as it may, the question for young-earth creationists remains: If God created in the way they claim and left evidence that he did so, why would God leave the sort of evidence that would convince the ignorant but not the well-informed, the gullible but not those employing the scientific method? As Ken Miller has helpfully shown, young-earth creationism isn't merely not science. It is also bad theology, offering a very dubious portrait of God.

Why I Am A Christian

Today the philosophy club at Butler University held a lunchtime discussion of Bertrand Russell's famous essay, "Why I Am Not A Christian". One criticism of the essay that I offered in the discussion is that it offers a no more sophisticated or academic a treatment of stories in the New Testament than fundamentalists would.

The story of Jesus sending demons into pigs is criticized. This story seems to me to very obviously be an example of political satire. This story from Mark's Gospel is about the casting out of a 'host' of demons who call themselves "Legion". The story is the equivalent of one that could have been told during occupied France during World War II, in which a French exorcist drives out a host of demons from a French man. The demons identify themselves as called "Panzer division" and beg not to be sent out of the country - the latter is exactly what these "Roman demons" beg Jesus in Mark! To make matters funnier, the demons take the role of (anti-)exorcist, invoking a higher power (God) to adjure (a technical term used in exorcism) Jesus not to cast them out. Then, whereas exorcists usually demanded a sign that the demons have left, the demons themselves ask to show they have departed by being sent into a herd of pigs - unclean animals according to Jewish Law. This is the icing on the cake - in the WWII parallel, the German demons would beg to be allowed to leave this French man and enter instead the opera company down the road that is performing Wagner! I discussed this passage in a treatment of satire as a neglected Biblical genre on my old blog once before.

Similarly, the other story he mentions is Jesus cursing a fig tree for not having any figs, when it wasn't even the season in which to expect them. Most interpreters would suggest once again that the story is symbolic, with Israel the fig tree having failed to bear fruit and coming under judgment.

So why am I a Christian? A short answer would be that it was within a Christian context that I had a life-changing religious experience. But given that I do not espouse Biblical literalism and inerrancy, some might ask whether I am still a Christian, and my answer would be that taking the whole Bible seriously is certainly no less Christian than quoting it selectively while pretending to believe it all and take it all literally.

I find very helpful an answer to this question that Marcus Borg has also articulated. I am a Christian in much the same way that I am an American. It is not because I condone the actions of everyone who has officially represented America, or that I espouse the viewpoints of its current leaders. It is because I was born into it, and value the positive elements of this heritage enough that I think it is worth fighting over the definition of what it means to be American, rather than giving up on it and moving somewhere else. In the same way, the tradition that gave birth to my faith and nurtured it is one that has great riches (as well as much else beside), and I want to struggle for an understanding of Christianity that emphasizes those things. And just as my having learned much from other cultures is not incompatible with my being an American, my having learned much from other religious traditions doesn't mean I am not a Christian. Christians have always done so. Luke attributes to Paul (in Acts 17:28) a positive quotation from a poem about Zeus (from the Phainomena by Aratos [sometimes spelled Aratus], about which there was an interesting paper at the conference I attended in Sibiu).

Why am I a Christian? Because I prefer to keep the tradition I have, rather than discarding it with the bathwater and then trying to make something new from scratch. When we pretend that we can simply leave the past behind and start anew we deceive ourselves: just look at the way China worshipped its 'Communist emperor' Mao with all the devotion and spectacle they offered to earlier ones. Even an atheist is in dialogue with the past, willingly or unwillingly. That is why (as Mary Doria Russell helpfully notes in one of her novels) atheists differ depending on what sort of faith they have cast aside.

The God Gene

On my recent trip I took along Dean Hamer's book The God Gene: How Faith Is Hardwired into Our Genes. Since he apologizes for the title as not of his choosing, I will not comment on it, except to say that it was a factor that led me to not read the book sooner. I thought it would be predictable where his line of reasoning would go, based on the title, and so I write this as someone who was pleasantly surprised by the book's content. He is not attempting to suggest that there is in fact a single "God gene", but merely exploring the role of genes in spirituality and religion.

Hamer's book is based on one particular discovery the author was involved in relating to a genetic difference and its effect on brain chemistry relevant to spirituality, as well as the results of various twin studies in this area. He offers a nice balance between nature and nurture (and, while recognizing that there are genetic and social roots to these, he leaves room for the idea of 'personal preference'). Among the most striking information in the book is that there is an inverse correlation between mystical and religious tendencies (p.21). There is also strong evidence that, while parents may influence whether or not their children do such things as attend church, there is little ability on the part of parents to influence whether their children are spiritual (pp.49,51,176-177). Religion and spirituality are clearly independent factors, even though this doesn't entirely support the contemporary dichotomy that some make between the two. As Hamer himself writes, "Whatever the genes are for spirituality, they don't have any effect on how often people go to church."

Given that the author clearly doesn't know much about religions in general (there is a reference to Islam on p.210 that is about as inaccurate as is conceivably possible), the book is not bad. There are some interesting references to DNA research on the Jews and on caste in India - although the evidence that is at odds with the traditional Biblical account is not actually mentioned. What is included is nonetheless important and fascinating.

At the Sibiu conference I attended only one paper dealt with Neurotheology, but it was an interesting one. The author spoke about the thalamus and compared it to the 'bridal chamber' of the mind/soul mentioned by the mystics. It was interesting to see how someone objected to the suggestion that spiritual experiences might have something to do with the brain. The same person also objected to the theologian in question's use of the term "making love" in relation to the mystical experience of God. Anyone who knows the writings of the mystics, or who has had a mystical experience themselves, will know that such language is in fact apt. And given the similarities, and given that religious experiences, whatever else they may be, are experiences, how could they possibly not have a connection to the brain?

It is now possible to identify genes such as VMAT2, which codes for a monoamine transporter and the two versions of which (A and C) correspond to a significant extent to one's sense (or not) of self-transcendence - this is the key research Hamer was involved in on this subject, and which he describes in the book. Although I am (mostly) being facetious, I would humbly suggest that the presence of A rather than C in one's DNA at this point be called "The Dawkins Disability". After all, religion seems to be present from the origin of self-awareness, and although religion and spirituality are themselves not directly correlated, religion tends to arise and perpetuate ideas that are born out of spirituality - major religious figures were in most cases individuals who had mystical or other sorts of religious experiences. Perhaps it would be fitting to name the presence of a particular gene variation that fails to provide for such experiences after a person who illustrates precisely the sort of lack of self-transcendence this gene causes.

At any rate, for anyone interested in the relationship between religion and science, and between mysticism and neuroscience in particular, I would definitely recommend this book.

Transdisciplinary Perspectives on Religion, Science and Art

Today was the last day of a conference I was attending entitled TRANSDICIPLINARY APPROACHES OF THE DIALOGUE BETWEEN SCIENCE, ART AND RELIGION IN THE EUROPE OF TOMORROW. For me, in many respects the highlight of the conference was learning that there are actually fans of science fiction in Romania. Apparently I just hadn't encountered any because I've been hanging out with the wrong people. My paper was on religion and artificial intelligence. It has been wonderful having the opportunity to interact with a number of European scientists and in particular theologians approaching the subject from an Orthodox perspective.

The Expanding Universe

Recently, I experienced a moment in which I didn't simply know theoretically that I am a complex combination of subatomic particles and mostly empty space. I felt it. And as I thought about this further, I wondered whether, if one could view a life form such as a human being at the subatomic level, one would see anything other than what we see looking out into space: elements of complex structural arrangements stretching off beyond the edge of the furthest reaches of our vision.

The universe appears to be expanding. One explanation is that it originated via an explosion from a singularity. Another proposal involves branes which cause this effect when they come into contact, and envisages a cyclical universe. I want to ask a question about this. Might the universe be growing? How, if at all, would the universe look different if it is part of something for which the closest analogy on our level of existence would be a life form, although by definition this transcendent reality would be something intrinsically unimaginable. Might the universe be part of something that is alive and is thus growing rather than merely expanding? If so, how might we be able to tell, from our perspective?

St. Augustine's Confessions...Stolen!

My colleague in the history department who told me about this thought it could serve nicely as the introduction to a novel or movie. It is true, and so the author/filmmaker could rightly claim "This story is based on real events." Every copy of St. Augustine's Confessions (but not his other works) that was in our university library has been stolen! Who would do such a thing? How would you continue the story? An evil cult? But wouldn't the Pelagians have left the Confessions and taken City of God instead? :-) Aliens, who have eliminated all copies of the Confessions worldwide as prelude to an invasion? Who could be behind this? What is the explanation? And, perhaps most importantly, what would Dan Brown write if he made use of this idea? :-)

The Gospel of James the Lesser

No, this post isn't about a newly-discovered extracanonical text. It is good news regarding yours truly (using 'the lesser' to distinguish myself from my doctoral supervisor, James Dunn). My second book has been accepted for publication by the University of Illinois Press! The title is The Only True God, and it will look at Christology and monotheism in early Christianity and its Jewish context, including some studies of relevant information from Jewish works several centuries earlier and later, in an attempt to assess whether the Christology of these early Christians fit within the monotheism of the time. My main argument is that it did, and that monotheism did not become a point of dispute between Jews and Christians (or between Christian and non-Christian Jews) until significantly after the New Testament period.

I'll keep you posted when I know more about release date and other such information.

Lifestyle Choice

In our day and age many Christians, including very prominent ones, have chosen a lifestyle that is fundamentally at odds with their claim to be Christians. This is a lifestyle choice I am talking about - it is not something genetic, something innate, something inevitable. It is a sin that is so abominable that it is condemned uncategorically in both Testaments. I am speaking, of course, of the tendency in particular among American Christians, and particularly among our leaders, to live in luxury while our brothers and sisters are starving, cold, and oppressed.

While some spend much time denouncing homosexuals as a danger to our society, the only sense I can make of this is an attempt to find some other sin that people will focus on, lest we realize that those who are pointing the finger are living much more blatantly in sin themselves. Homosexuality was a rather ordinary and relatively common part of the experience of many people in the Greco-Roman world, and yet Paul mentions it extremely infrequently, and in the cases when he does he may have in mind the element of pedophilia in traditional Greek education and be opposing that in particular. Be that as it may, it is noteworthy that with all his wonderful letter-writing skills he never appears to have written a letter to anyone complaining that homosexuality is too widespread, too influential. Instead he wrote letters to Christian communities focusing on other topics, and (if Acts 17 is to be believed) engaged in respectful yet powerful dialogue with those he disagreed with. The only real instances of his sounding intolerant are in his addresses to what might be called the religious right of his own time.

Right-wing religious leaders have often accused the homosexuals of America of wanting special favoritism under the law. This is incredibly ironic, given that these fellow citizens of ours have only asked to be allowed to have the same rights others already have. It is the religious right that really is asking for special treatment - it wants specifically Christian sexual mores of a specific sort that not all Christians agree with legislated and imposed on everyone else. Why is this so hard to see? Why is it so hard for so many American Christians to understand that when we complain about not being allowed to have our views imposed on others and mandated by the state, we are showing (1) intolerance of others, unwillingness to have them lead their own lives as they see fit, and more importantly (2) a complete lack in faith in the power and persuasiveness of the Gospel. It is only those who don't think the Christian Gospel alone is enough that decide they need it bolstered by the state.

I originally wrote this post after having just read Mel White's book Religion Gone Bad. It is well worth reading, and it persuades me that he is more truly a Christian than any of his opponents among the religious right. Mel White has grasped both the heart of the Christian Gospel, and has put his finger on the sins that sit enthroned as idols in the religious right and among Christians generally in our country, unacknowledged and unchallenged, as we sit in judgment on others and fail to see how far astray we have gone ourselves.

Although White tries to play them down, his book rightly highlights the similarities (many more than the ones I noted recently on my blog) between the religious right and the historic rhetoric of fascism. Perhaps the most moving moment in the book is when he tells how an elderly Jewish woman came to show her support for gays because "last time they came for you first...never again". The way homosexuals are being demonized and made scapegoats for all our social ills is precisely the way the Nazis started.

There is also a wonderful treatment of the question of the founding fathers and their intentions. The big concern most of us have is not that somehow the religious right will manage to rewrite the constitution or remove the first amendment - I doubt that the majority of Americans would ever agree to that. But our fear is that they may not need to do that - it may be sufficient for them simply to convince a majority of Americans (or the majority of those who care enough to vote) that the first amendment never intended what historically all except the modern religious right have assumed, namely that it protects all religions from all others and from the state, as well as the state from religious dominance, and does not just protect Christianity from the state's interference. There is a wonderful statement by James Madison, which can be read online and which is quoted in part in the book. Read it for yourselves. All I'll say is that it is as clear as can be that the founding fathers foresaw precisely the sorts of maneuvers the modern religious right is attempting to use and they set in place in our constitution and in their own writings safeguards against them. As long as we have their bulwark protecting our freedoms, we ought to be safe, but the great fear is that while we finght wars allegedly defending our freedoms, individuals and groups in our own country may themselves succeed in undermining them, again not overtly and in obvious moves such as an amendment revoking the bill of rights, but in an attempt to persuade public opinion to ignore or reinterpret the foundational structures that keep us free and safe.

The Earliest Christian Artifacts

My review of Larry Hurtado's latest book, The Earliest Christian Artifacts: Manuscripts and Christian Origins, has just been published in the online Review of Biblical Literature. The book makes a major important point, and does so well, namely that the actual manuscripts of early Christian literature, their physical features and characteristics, are largely unknown to most scholars of early Christianity in anything other than a superficial way. Hurtado's invitation to remedy this is so important that, in my review, I forego altogether commenting on a few insignificant but jarring features, such as the reference to "linear Darwinian evolution" (it isn't, and any educated individual ought to know that in our day and age), and the rather silly statement that the divine name in some manuscripts is 'set apart' from all other words by being transliterated as opposed to translated - as though this were not true of names in general. The book remains a wonderfully worthwhile read in spite of such features, which are extremely few, and is on the whole full of information that most scholars of early Christianity lack. In short: I recommend reading Hurtado's book!