1 Martie

For those who have a special Romanian woman in their lives, don't forget to get her a martisor, as tomorrow is March 1st. And flowers. Just a friendly reminder!

Of Probabilities, Talpiot Tombs and Jesus Ossuaries

Most people are aware of the discovery of the tomb in the Talpiot suburb of Jerusalem containing an ossuary apparently inscribed with the name Jesus son of Joseph, which was the focus of a documentary not that long ago. Scholars and other well-informed individuals know that the tomb in question was in fact excavated in the 1980s.

I experienced a moment of initial perplexity when I read Andre Parrot's 1955 book Golgotha and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and found he mentions a sensation made by the discovery of ossuaries in 1945 in a tomb in Talipioth near Jerusalem, inscribed in Greek or Aramaic with names familiar from the New Testament, including two ossuaries that have the name Jesus followed by what seems to be a cry of lament. He also mentions the discovery of an ossuary even earlier that was inscribed with "Jesus son of Joseph". The latter, however, is unprovenanced.


There have been many discussions of the statistics and probabilities of the conjunctions of names found in the excavation from the 1980s. Rarely, however, have I seen them take fully into account the discoveries from earlier decades, including ones made in the Talpiot area. The relatively recent one is not the first discovery of its kind, nor are the sensational claims made about it without precedent.

LOST Untangled: The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham

Cyber-Symbology in the early-21st Century: Call For Papers

David Ker has announced the following conference, to be held a millenium from now.

Cyber-Symbology in the early-21st Century: Recursive Orality and Cotexting through Cyber-Psalm 26

Date: February 29, 3008
Location: TBA
Call for papers: Please submit title, abstract and a brief bio. Due to the nature of this conference an infinite number of papers may be submitted.

I am proposing a paper, since I'm confident that between now and then, time travellers from the future will come and fetch me to make my attendance possible. Details follow...

Paper proposal and abstract:

Why The Lingamish Blog is a Twenty-Third Century Forgery

Although many have claimed the recently-discovered Lingamish blog to be not only an authentic artifact of the 21st century, but the original source of the spiritual classic Cyber-Psalm 26, this paper will demonstrate that Lingamish is in fact a forgery from the 23rd century. Two key pieces of evidence converge to require this conclusion. The first is the claim to authorship made on Lingamish, which is precisely what one would expect in a late forgery, whereas all surviving early 21st century sources indicate that authorial intention was considered irrelevant during that epoch. The second is the absence of the numbers 4, 8, 15, 16, 23, and 42, which were central to the spirituality of the early 21st century.

Presenter bio:

Dr. McGrath is a specialist in early 21st century studies. His best-known work is his book LOST and Lingamish: Numbers and Religion in Early 21st Century Spiritual Television and a Late 23rd Century Forgery (Los Angeles: Widmore Press, 3008).

It Is Written: LOST and Slumdog Millionaire, Peter and Judas, Ben and John

Human beings in a wide variety of cultural and religious contexts find it comforting to think that everything happens for a reason, and this is a theme explored not only in various science fiction contexts in which notions of fate, destiny, and one's path have been touched on (including not only LOST but also The Matrix and Star Wars films among many others), but also the very different Slumdog Millionaire.

But why should we find it consoling that a slum-dwelling orphan wins millions of rupees, or even that a man dies and rises again (I'm referring to John Locke, of course - who did you think I was talking about?), when millions are left in their slums or in their graves, apparently not having been singled out as "special" by destiny?

Last night's episode of LOST tried to get us to rethink the situating of Benjamin Linus and Charles Widmore in relation to one another and the polar opposites of good vs. evil. But it may be that both are trying to manipulate John, and indeed it may be that the "game" they are playing with one another features John as perhaps the most valuable piece on the playing board, but John is not a player in the game but merely a piece. And if so, is being the king better than being a pawn?

It is even more interesting, perhaps, to consider the notion of destiny in relation to another famous story of death and resurrection, echoes of which we are intended to hear in LOST, as the discussion of Thomas the apostle on a recent episode clearly indicates. Charles Widmore reminds one of Peter, whose response to the prediction of Jesus' impending death was to say that he would never let that happen to him. Ben Linus, on the other hand, takes on the role of Judas. He helps fulfill the prophecy and yet seems at the same time to be betraying rather than cooperating with Jesus/John, all the while bringing about that which is destined to occur.

Is it any wonder that thinkers have pondered the figure of Judas with such attention, or that scholars have wrestled with the interpretation of the Gospel of Judas? How are we to make sense of a story in which the one who tries to defend Jesus' life is called Satan, and yet the one who brings about his death is "destined for destruction", one who would have been better off not being born? How can fighting destiny and assisting it both be condemned?

The truth is that we human beings seem to feel two needs in dire circumstances: the need to have some malevolent force to blame, one that is relatively weak and capable of being overcome; and the need to believe that a higher benevolent power is in control. And while such resonances continue to make for powerful storytelling, when it comes to real life, it is time for humans (and for our religious traditions) to begin to accept that this view of things is ultimately self-contradictory and thus unstable. If the death and resurrection of John Locke or Jesus of Nazareth are foreordained, then neither the one who tries in vain to prevent the inevitable, nor the one who maliciously brings it about, has any guilt. The answer in this case is "D: It is written".

In these stories we also need a Judas or a Benjamin Linus for another reason. Could we have continued to view John Locke positively if he killed himself? The notion that Jesus essentially committed suicide would also trouble most Christians, and yet there is a sense in which publicly proclaiming the kingdom of God in Caesar's kingdom might be considered "suicidal". We feel a need for Judas to betray Jesus, and for Ben to kill John rather than for John to kill himself, so that their deaths can be considered necessary, inevitable, perhaps even salvific - but not, ultimately, self-inflicted.

The episode was full of other interesting details. Why doesn't John ask Walt to return to the island? Will Walt return anyway? Have we seen the last of Matthew Abbadon? Should we believe Charles Widmore when he says that he and other heavily-armed people protected the island peacefully for decades? If so, how did he end up in that role of protector of the island? And why does Richard seem to have happily accepted Ben's leadership, even while looking for his replacement? Who or what is Richard Alpert anyway? And now that John Locke has returned to life, is he any more or less alive than Christian Shepherd? Watching LOST is really enjoyable at this stage, when questions are being answered and yet there are still enough loose ends and mysteries to keep us wondering. But I sometimes worry that the loose ends will never be able to be adequately tied up. And so we may ask a question about LOST akin to that asked in Slumdog Millionaire: If LOST manages to wow us right up to the end, will it be because of genius, luck, cheating, or because "It is written"?

Quote of the Day (Kim Fabricius)

"Should it be of concern to Christians that Darwin was never more than a nominal believer? Only if, rejecting universalism, you are concerned about the destiny of his immortal soul. Otherwise – well, are you concerned whether your surgeon, mechanic, or hair stylist goes to church? Of course not. Your only concern is that she wields a scalpel, wrench, or scissors with know-how and dexterity. So too with a scientist: one’s only concern should be that he is an honest and skilled practitioner of his craft. And Darwin wasn’t just an able and meticulous biologist, he was a bloody genius. If his theory of evolution by natural selection is the best theory in town that explains the evidence (palaeontological, morphological/taxonomical, molecular/genetic) – and it is – deal with it. Of course refute it on empirical grounds if you can, but don’t rubbish it because you don’t like its theological or moral implications, or because you have a political agenda. Fight science with science – not with the pseudo-science of creationism or the bad science of ID (not to mention the bad theology of both). "

-- Kim Fabricius, "Ten propositions on Darwin and the deity"

Was Friends a Prototype for LOST?

If it seems that an innovative TV show like LOST doesn't just appear out of nowhere, consider that Friends may have served as a testing ground for some of the key concepts. Here are some facets of Friends that resurface (often in a significantly different form) on LOST:

1) A small group of people live on an island. Slowly they come to discover that there are other people besides them who live on it.

2) Two key main characters who become romantically involved are a dark-haired "man of science" and a woman who ran out on her wedding.

3) The main characters are stranded in an apartment in which a hatch is discovered that apparently leads to a mysterious coffee house (or is it the other way around?).

4) Smokey appears in a few episodes.

5) Viewers spend multiple seasons wondering whether questions raised in the first season will ever get definitively answered. When eventually a small subset of the main characters escape the island, we wonder whether they will return or this will mark a permanent end to the show. We later find that another main character also makes it off the island and eventually winds up in California.

6) Other minor details, such as a character who makes a significant amount of money by manipulating seemingly meaningless numbers, the presence of a boat, guest appearances by characters' parents, and the births of children to main characters are also parallels worth mentioning.

People have claimed to detect parallels between LOST and other TV shows, movies and books, but none are quite as close as those listed above...

Hans Holbein, The Body of the Dead Christ in the Tomb

I am working on finishing an article on the burial of Jesus for the Encyclopedia of the Bible and its Reception (in fact, the section I'm responsible for is that on the reception of the material in Christianity in modern Europe and America). Some mention of the painting by Hans Holbein the Younger that made such an impression on Dostoyevsky (so much so that he incorporated it into The Idiot) seems appropriate.

I'm finding it something of a nuisance that the painting is referred to in English in a number of different ways. I've seen it referred to as The Body of the Dead Christ in the Tomb and as Christ Taken From The Cross, as well as in other ways. I don't suppose that there are any readers with a greater degree of knowledge of art history, who might have some additional advice to offer on this subject? Other thoughts and suggestions related to the Western reception of the burial of Jesus are also welcome.

Anna M. Blanch Combats Grade Inflation

Blogger Anna M. Blanch, at her blog Goannatree, is reviewing the Top 100 blogs ranked as such recently by ChristianColleges.com. Here's what she wrote about Exploring Our Matrix:

Dr. James McGrath, associate Professor of Religion at Butler University, writes this blog about exploring the theological aspect of his "matrix" or "world." The blog is primarily a commentary on popular culture, Christian sub culture, and the responsibilities of Christians to act redemptively when interacting with culture. The header design is striking but the rest of the design is difficult to follow and it is not apparent if there is a clear scope or structure to provide a coherent structure. Also writes on a series of other blogs.

Making the Grade:
Scope - B- (Scope is not clearly defined)
Quality - B
Theological Leanings - Baptist

Very few got an 'A', and that seems pretty appropriate, since few blogs deserve one - including my own.

Evolution and Religion Around the Blogosphere

Given that my last few posts have been about religion and science, I was struck by how many other blogs I read have also converged on this topic.

Cliff Martin highlights the problem with Intelligent Design, taking Gordon Glover's latest offering as his starting point. Bob Cornwall is defining science. Stranger Fruit revisits creationist credentialing. John Pieret disagrees with me.

John Shuck's church also celebrated Evolution Sunday a week late. Bay of Fundie has a post about (and a cartoon featuring) Tiktaalik. Jerry Coyne mentions and Doug Chaplin responds to a piece in today's Guardian.

Although not quite on this topic, I should also mention Ken Schenck's discovery that Calvin makes no sense. Also, James Crossley, Jim West, Tom Verenna and James Tabor touch on the decision about Gerd Luedemann.

A Closed Challenge to Neo-Darwinists

Uncommon Descent is such a hilarious place, I probably ought to have visited there more often than I have lately. For instance, Thomas Cudworth has posted what he calls An Open Challenge to Neo-Darwinists: What Would It Take to Falsify Your Theory?

The funny part is that people like me, who would love to respond from an evolutionary perspective, are banned from commenting. So in what sense is this an "open challenge"?!

Here's what I would have commented if I were allowed to:

I must confess, given that evolutionary explanations have been so helpful in making sense of data, and an evolutionary framework has led to the discovery of confirming evidence (e.g. the unearthing of Tiktaalik, where current evolutionary theory led archaeologists to look for it), I can't see why one would expect scientists to abandon this framework at the first instance of a failure to immediately come up with an explanation.

In other words, it would seem that, on the one hand, finding an organism without the same genetic code used for instructions would immediately make it plausible to suggest that there might not be an evolutionary relationship. On the other hand, if all the signs that have accurately indicated relatedness (common genetic code, related morphology, etc.) points to the plausibility of an evolutionary explanation, the appropriate scientific response to a current absence of evolutionary explanation would seem to be to keep looking for one.

Darwin's theory would have been falsified if the underlying mechanism for passing on traits (what we today known as genetics) had, when discovered, shown no signs that living things are interrelated. Finding fossils that show complex organisms, or types of organisms, where they ought not to be if evolution is correct. Yet the evidence consistently corroborates Darwin's overall theory, while further discoveries have obviously required some aspects of it to be revised, rethought and improved.

But let's look more closely at the question intelligent design generally poses, because it is problematic. What they are looking for over at Uncommon Descent is akin to asking at what point it is appropriate for detectives to stop looking for a murderer to explain the dead body that has been found, and conclude instead that no human murderer could possibly exist, God must simply have wanted this person dead. And the answer is that the appropriate course of action for the police is to leave the case open, not to close it by appeal to a supernatural murderer, and in the same way scientists should declare questions unanswered, rather than closing them by saying that a particular phenomenon is by definition inexplicable in scientific terms. And it is the job of science to keep looking for ways to reopen questions that once appeared closed, and discover new ways of explaining natural phenomena, as well as providing technologies that helps us solve crimes as well.

Fearfully and Wonderfully Evolved

Today in my Sunday school class, we had our "evolution weekend" conversation that was postponed from last Sunday, when I was away at the Midwest SBL meeting.

Many of the points that came up are ones that I've made before on this blog and elsewhere. For instance, I emphasized that there is nothing specifically limited to evolution that singles it out for a greater degree of conflict with a literal reading of the Bible than other scientific fields. Some examples I offered include:

(1) Genetics and embryology: Psalm 139:13 says that God knit the psalmist (and presumably humans in general) together in the mother's womb. Literalists ought to be up in arms about this and opposed to the contemporary scientific understanding, since it is not merely about the origin of our species but the status of each individual as a divine creation. Yet not only is there no Christian antiembryological movement that I know of, but many Christians find it comforting to believe that God does not directly cause congenital birth defects.

(2) Meteorology: Leviticus 26:4 attributes the rain directly to God, and so how can meteorologists dare to attribute it to natural phenomena such as barometric pressure and who knows what else?

(3) Astronomy and Australians: We had an entertaining discussion about the plausibility of the existence of Australians. But not only does Joshua 10:12-14 suggest a different view of the solar system than that accepted today, but it seems to involve Joshua addressing the sun and moon, which is a whole other discussion. When it comes to the movement of the earth, here we do find people who reject mainstream science on the basis of an appeal to the Bible. Passages like Psalm 104:5, Psalm 93:1 and 1 Chronicles 16:30 are pretty clear.

And so, on the one hand, a genuinely and consistently literalistic approach to the Bible would put one at odds with all science and many other fields of knowledge, and not just evolution. On the other hand, the evidence for evolution is every bit as solid as for other scientific fields. That doesn't mean that our knowledge is not growing. At times new discoveries do cause us to revise or supplement our earlier thinking. But what is striking is that, while scientists love making new discoveries that show where other great minds have been wrong, propelling the discoverer/pioneer to the front cover of science magazines, we've yet to see a young-earth creationist or proponent of intelligent design accomplish that, because they are not offering research that improves our understanding, but mere empty criticism that neither correctly identifies problems with current theory or offers genuinely helpful improvements or alternatives.

We concluded with me pointing out that those who claim that science, or more specifically evolutionary biologists, reduce human beings to a mere pile of chemicals of little value, simply misunderstand the nature of scientific analysis. Genesis 2 says humans are dirt, if one wants to talk about physical make-up. Neither religion nor science claims humans are more or less valuable because of our composition. If there is anything that makes us valuable, it is the complex arrangement of the matter that makes us up, and our capacity to relate to one another and to God, to compose and appreciate works of beauty, and in other ways transcend what might be expected of the atoms that make up our physical composition.

To use another analogy, one can accurately analyse a symphony in terms of the chemical composition of the instruments or the physical vibrations in the air. Such analyses are not scientifically incorrect. They are just different perspectives, and ones that we may well deem insufficient on their own, since it is also appropriate (perhaps necessary) to do justice to our appreciation of the symphony as beautiful. The problem, in other words, is in no way with scientific analysis, but with reductionism, that is to say, the attempt to say that humans are "nothing but" the chemicals of which we are made, or a symphony is "nothing but" vibrations. The natural sciences offer accurate analyses of certain aspects of things, but do not (and need not, and ought not) claim that there is nothing more to be said at other levels and from other perspectives.

Next week we'll connect up the current series with our previous topic by looking at Romans 5.

Darwin Was Wrong

Having had a chance to reflect somewhat on the (obviously sensationalist) headline from the cover of a recent issue of New Scientist, I think that it does more good than harm. Let me explain why.

First, this cover helpfully (if potentially misleadingly) illustrates that Darwin's theory is not being shielded from criticism by an atheistic scientific conspiracy. One can criticize the details of the theory. All one has to do is provide evidence via scientific research.

This leads nicely to the second helpful point about this issue. What Darwin was "wrong" about was the tree of life, which does for the most part accurately reflect the evolutionary paths of large organisms, which was what Darwin was interested in. But it turns out that single-celled organisms (the majority of living things both historically and at present) are related more like a tangled thicket, with viruses copying genetic material horizontally between organisms. And so Darwin wasn't wrong about evolution in general, but about the general applicability of one particular diagram (which he labelled in his notebook with the humble words "I think") to an area (genetics) that was not yet known in Darwin's time, and which on the whole fit well with his theory and its predictions.

But the most noteworthy detail, of course, is that "Darwin was wrong" about something, and in a specific way, that the "Intelligent Design theorists" did not foresee. And that nicely illustrates the difference between the scientific research that makes headline news in science magazines, and the ID crowd, who stubbornly refuse to do scientific research. Because they are not interested in investigating whether Darwin was right or wrong as a scientific question. They are interested in promoting their viewpoint in a way that bypasses the only tools that can ever determine whether Darwin, or any other scientist, was right or wrong about some matter of science. And so this headline, and the fact that it has nothing to do with Intelligent Design, speaks loudly and clearly about the difference between science and pseudoscience, and illustrates plainly why ID falls into the latter category.

Weapons in the War on Science

I happened across a blog, "Science and Values", to which I regret providing a link as it may contribute to them gaining Technorati or some other sort of "authority" they do not deserve. The most recent post illustrates the tactics used by deceitful individuals determined not only to attack science without warrant, but to give Christianity a bad name in the process.

Here are some of the "weapons" used:

(1) Accuse of racism: The blog post takes as its jumping-off point a cartoon that blames the economic stimulus legislation on an ape of some sort. Evolution is then blamed as the source of racism, even though that is nonsense. Science does not claim that people of one particular skin color are more closely related to other primates than human beings with another shade of skin.

(2) Blame "Darwinism": Our relatedness to other life on this planet is now confirmed most decisively by genetics, a field of science that allows us to speak about such degrees of relationship with much greater precision than was previously possible. Genetics, of course, was not even invented in Darwin's time, although its discovery confirmed what Darwin's theory expected to be the case if it were to be correct.

(3) Parade your irrelevant qualifications: I obviously think having letters after one's name is an admirable thing, but expertise in meteorology does not give you any greater relevant qualifications to speak about evolution than my own.

It saddens me when people who claim to be Christians nevertheless spend their time ignoring the things the Bible focuses on, and instead show their greatest interest to be in pridefully claiming themselves to be right and everyone else to be wrong with respect to matters that they have not even taken the time to fully understand.

God and Transhumanism

The science fiction web site IO9 picked up on my blog entry about robots named John and their questions for God, resulting in some interesting discussions both there and here.

On a related subject, Metanexus' online magazine The Global Spiral has an issue focusing on transhumanism. The title of the issue is "H+:Transhumanism Answers Its Critics". While religious believers are often among the more vocal critics of attempts to "play God" and "tamper with nature", such criticisms are based on an outmoded understanding of creation. If, as is clearly the case, our current form of human existence has been brought about through a long series of natural processes both historically and in each individual case, it is far from obvious that such processes as a rule unfold and act upon us beneficially, while wilful human intervention is always an inappropriate act of hubris. On the contrary, interfering with the natural course of events out of a motivation for justice and compassion ought to be central to, and the defining feature of, a Christian approach to science, as well as to other aspects of life.

LOST Lamp Post

Tonight's episode of LOST was unusual, simply because it released tension rather than simply creating it. Things that we knew were bound to happen, things that we wondered about, we finally got to see.

I won't go into details, but those who have yet to see the episode may still wish to refrain from reading further until they've seen it.

Perhaps most interesting, given my own interests outside of LOST, was the reflection on Thomas the Apostle. The themes of doubt and faith, and of the need to take a leap of faith, returned to the foreground in this episode.

The only other detail I'll mention relates to last week's episode. The carpet cleaning company whose van Ben was driving was called Canton Rainier. That's an anagram...for reincarnation.

Machines Named John and their Questions for God

Recent episodes of science fiction television have converged on the theme of androids named John coming up with questions for God. And what interesting questions they are!

On the episode that marked the return of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, robot John Henry continues his education by playing with Bionicle action figures, as well as searching the internet, listening in on unsecured phone lines, and talking with Miss Weaver and Agent Ellison. John, noting the difference between the toys' ball socket joints and his own, he begins to ponder the fact. Ellison says that John's body was made in the image of that of humans. When asked whose image human bodies are made it, Ellison says "God's". John then comes up with a question for God: why didn't he make humans with more ball socket joints?

This isn't just a silly question. Our bodily forms are not optimum, and without evolution as an intermediary and part of the explanation, the notion of our bodily forms being in God's image becomes borderline inexplicable. Interestingly, on Battlestar Galactica we find a Cylon named John (he prefers to be called "Cavil") interrogating his maker, known to us as Ellen Tigh. In this fantastic episode, we learn how five Cylons on Earth foresaw a coming apocalypse and escaped, and later helped create the human-like models of Cylons. John complains that he is forced to view wondrous things like supernovas through "ridiculous gelatinous orbs" that can only see part of the spectrum. Unlike Data who wants to be human, John resents having human limitations rather than more extensive machine capabilities.

Some have complained that BSG is bad (or at least "not as good as LOST") because the writers didn't know where they were going ahead of time. Neither did evolution. That's why we don't have more ball and socket joints. But that doesn't mean that human existence is not something splendid and wonderful, that our nature with its limitations doesn't give us a gift that the theoretical infinite possibilities John desires might not.

But that's the point that came up on the pilot of Dollhouse: no matter what we have, we always want something we don't. Yet it seems to be precisely our imperfection and the long evolutionary history that gave rise to us that have endowed us with free will and creativity, those very things that historically have been referred to as "the image of God" in humankind.

Walt, LOST in Time?

I've been thinking about the introduction of time travel to LOST, and the interaction of the time-skippers with people in the past. I suspect that at some point, Walt will return to the island, but the island has been moved in time and so he will return at a point in the past, and will, among other things, try to warn Shannon to be quiet and tell John Locke to get up, he has work to do. While the island (or the smoke monster) has regularly manifested itself as the dead, Walt is the only still-living person that I can think of who has appeared in places he could not normally have been. Time travel might make sense of this, and if the producers do indeed go back and account for this aspect of the earlier story, it will be yet another example of the brilliance of LOST.

If I were asked to speculate further, I would guess that at some point, Walt will be transported into the past and will get off the island, and will begin working towards some goal involving the island and those with whom he crashed on it. And just as John Locke had to use a different name, Walt too will have to disguise his identity. He'll call himself Matthew Abaddon.

Quote of the Day (Michael Dowd)

"Most religious traditions portray God as exhibiting the very best of human traits toward the tribe or in-group ("those who believe or act like this..."), and the most horrific of human traits toward the out-group (those who fail to believe or act in the prescribed manner). For example, the U.S. Department of Defense defines terrorism as "the calculated use of violence or the threat of violence to inculcate fear; intended to coerce or to intimidate others in the pursuit of goals that are generally political, religious, or ideological." In a post 9-11 world, we all understand this. Yet a literal reading of the Bible or Koran portrays God exactly in that light...

So here's traditional religion's God problem in a nutshell: Religious people of all faiths know that none of this is true. God is not tribal and petty. God does not have multiple personality disorder. And God is not a cosmic terrorist. Yet as anyone who has carefully read their Bible or Koran can testify, some passages of Holy Writ undeniably portray God this way. That is traditional religion's God problem. That's the elephant in the living room that no one other than atheists are willing to talk about. It is why millions are embarrassed by scripture (though they'd never admit it), and why millions of others are leaving organized religion altogether."

-- Michael Dowd, "Traditional Religion's God Problem"

Selected Works

Butler University's library has begun establishing "Selected Works" pages for faculty, and I had the privilege of being the first (otherwise known as being a "guinea pig"). They've managed to get permission from several publishers to make the full text of some of my articles and reviews available, and probably will add more as the process progresses. Click here to take a look!

Midwest SBL 2009

I got back yesterday from the Midwest Society of Biblical Literature meeting at Olivet Nazarene University in Bourbonnais, Illinois. I wish to make a public apology for my constant coughing at the conference, which I'm certain was annoying (it certainly was to me - having bronchitis is a pain in the neck...er, lungs). In spite of this, and some sleep deprivation, it was a great conference.

I spent Saturday at the Gospels section, where I read a paper entitled "Written Islands in an Oral Stream", about the oral context of the written Gospels, methodology, and the relevance of this subject to the Synoptic problem and the historical Jesus. There were a lot of interesting papers in the section. Michael Halcomb, fellow biblioblogger, spoke about Jesus' death in light of the concept of diffusion and change. Lee Sang-il spoke about 'codeswitching' (i.e. changing languages) in Luke-Acts, and drew to our attention something I personally hadn't noticed before, namely the many different ways that Nazareth is spelled in Luke-Acts. In light of some of my recent interests, I immediately began wondering about the languages spoken by the author, as well as how much these variant spellings might be due to the use of an amanuensis unfamiliar with the place name (or at least, not used to writing it down). Clare Rothschild filled in for a last-minute cancellation with a paper on Pisidian Antioch (which she had the opportunity to visit recently) in Luke-Acts.

In the morning session (and thus before my own paper) Travis M. Derico read a paper entitled "There Is No Such Thing As 'Orality': Some Consequences for Synoptic Criticism". I couldn't help wondering whether there would be any point to my paper that afternoon! But Derico's point was rather that there is no one thing that can be spoken of generically as "orality". Specific historical and cultural settings, as well as different genres, result in "different oralities". One important point in the paper (which I also made in mine) is that the important differences between folksongs and epic poetry on the one hand, and Gospel narratives on the other, make it problematic to generalize about the latter on the basis of studies of the former. He also shared some fieldwork he did recording oral stories among Christians in Jordan. After my own paper later that day, during the question time, we had some interesting conversation about why I continue to think that, even though orality is a crucial part of the story, so too is literary dependence.

On Sunday morning I went to a session chaired by Holly Hearon on teaching the Bible, focused on the subject of textbooks. Rather than coming away from the session with a list of useful alternative texts to try out, I found that many, and particularly those who like to teach the Bible to some extent inductively, find the sorts of textbooks available problematic to a greater or lesser extent. The conversations were very valuable, in particular our discussions about the challenges of teaching undergraduates with diverse backgrounds, assumptions, degrees of interest and prior knowledge. I found myself imagining a textbook or reader that would accompany the primary texts, but rather than discuss "Who, What, When Where and Why", would either provide background information to be read before reading the text (e.g. a reading about "rent captialism" and the 8th-century socio-economic context of Amos before reading the book of Amos itself) or after reading the text (for instance, one that asked about possible perplexities in a Pentateuchal narrative, and then introduced the Documentary Hypothesis as one of the ways scholars have tried to make sense of the text). A nice moment was when one member shared the experience of reading Julius Wellhausen's Prolegomena to the History of Israel, and how clear it was when reading that book that Wellhausen's source critical approach was an attempt to make sense of the text, not impose a pre-defined framework upon it. Critical reading of the Bible is nothing other than an attempt to take the Bible seriously, all of it in all its details and with all its difficulties. Pretending that the Bible doesn't have these features is, by way of contrast, an act of infidelity to Scripture.

At that session I was also able to draw the extremely useful material at archive.org to the attention of some professors who were unaware of it. Students are going to continue to turn to the internet rather than books in spite of professors' warnings, and so I'd much rather they use the old series of the International Critical Commentary than Matthew Henry for academic papers - or books by Julius Wellhausen, for that matter.

It was good to hear at the meeting that the president of Olivet Nazarene University seems to be prepared to lift the restrictions on Richard Colling (author of Random Designer). If true, this means it is unlikely that the AAUP will have to take any further measures with regard to the situation. This was a matter of some concern at last year's meeting, and is one of the reasons other meeting venues were proposed. I think that, even though the matter seems to be in the course of resolution, it is good that next year's meeting is planned to be held at Valparaiso University. Although the attendance this year was excellent, there seemed to be fewer attendees from Ohio and Michigan. Changing the venue from time to time in the region is a good thing in terms of bringing the event closer to people who might find one particular location that little bit too far for convenience.

Evolution Sunday Quote of the Day (Dr. Isis)

"As a scientist I conduct research the same way everyone else does (or, so I assume), guided by the scientific method. I attempt to interpret my data using my current knowledge of physiology, and I don't think I have ever turned to I Thessalonians for information on endothelial-mediated vasodilation. Besides, everyone knows that all of the hot cardiovascular stuff is in I Corinthians.

I simply don't see my science guided by my faith, except in as much as my life is guided by my faith. I believe it is terrible hubris to say that there must be a God because there are things that I cannot understand or that appear mystical. On the other hand, I think it is an equal display of hubris to contend that, because I can take a physiological phenomenon and apply a mathematical construct to it, there must be no God."

-- Dr. Isis, "On the Blending of God and Science"

Lady Hope in the Matrix

Reformed Baptist pointed out to me an interesting article available online, which tells of the connection between a famous scholar of the Greek New Testament and the Lady Hope hoax claiming that Darwin repented of the theory of evolution. The story also tells of a postcard from an individual who would later be a famous textual critic, which makes it worth reading all the way through to the very end.

Also, apparently one of my recent posts is purging the Matrix. Funny, in the movie Agent Smith tries to fill the Matrix with himself - which is not my aim in this world. There is, however, a closer resemblance to someone known to want to fill the world with hippos...

Happy 200th Birthday!

Happy birthday to you

Happy birthday to you

Happy birthday dear Charlie

Happy birthday to you!

(And to you too, Abe!)

Why Modern Fundamentalism Shakes Confidence in the Bible

Christian Fundamentalists tell everyone that they ought to accept the truthfulness of the Bible. It is painfully ironic, therefore, that the character of fundamentalism has the effect of powerfully undermining the confidence of those who investigate or think seriously about its historicity.

Think about it. Someone like N. T. Wright can come along and make the argument for why we ought to leave room in our approach to history for the possibility that the disciples really experienced encounters with the risen Christ, encounters with a bodily component.

What causes us to find such arguments unpersuasive, or at least insufficient to lead us to certainty? Most likely it is the nagging question, "What if the authors of the earliest Gospels were like modern fundamentalists?"

The evidence that the stories of Darwin's deathbed conversion are a hoax has been presented over and over. So too has the evidence that persuades basically all biologists that evolution has occurred, and conversely the many flaws and outright lies told by various forms of creationism have been pointed out and responded to. Modern fundamentalism seems immune to all evidence, as the same false claims and "arguments" that have been answered more than once get recycled, repeated and believed.

If the ancient Gospel authors were like this, then there could have been individuals who had evidence that the tomb of Jesus was not empty, and it would be ignored (or responded to by making up a story about guards at the tomb). The eyewitnesses could have been appealed to as not having said the things they were purported to, and people who knew them could have been brought in to explain what Jesus was really like. The response would be to accuse even the inner circle of Jesus' followers of not really understanding him - which, interestingly enough, is precisely what Mark's Gospel does.

I am not saying that the Gospel authors were in fact fundamentalists. My point is simply that there mere possibility that they were, and thus were innoculated against any and all evidence against their viewpoints, makes it that much harder to trust their testimony.

And so there's the irony. There are fundamentalists who believe the Bible without evidence, and claim that the earliest Christians were just like them in believing in the same sort of way. And if they're right, or even if it is genuinely possible that they are right, that provides us adequate grounds for doubting the testimony those early Christians left behind.

Have We LOST Charlotte?

With a title like that, I suppose anyone trying to avoid spoilers about tonight's episode will have already averted their eyes. But as LOST gets more interesting in all sorts of science fictiony ways, I imagine those who are disliking the disclosure of the series' true genre are getting more and more annoyed. But let's be honest. Unless you couldn't care less about the mysteries raised from the very first season, there had to be a sci-fi component. Hatches and monsters and electromagnetism - it has all been leading here, and if you've come this far, you ought to stay and see what it is the series has been leading towards.

And now, for a recap of highlights. If you've watched it, or can't watch it soon and can't wait to know what happened, here are some of the gloriously interesting moments...

Jin's time-jumping are allowing us the equivalent of flashbacks about Rousseau even though the older Rousseau is no longer there to have them. We learn that the monster is what Danielle believed made Robert and the others "sick". It changed them. "Robert" said the monster is a security system guarding the temple.

Charlotte speaks Korean - and claims to also speak Klingon! After a flash, Charlotte pleads with Jin not to let them "bring her back", because "this place is death". As she gets more and more unstuck in time, Charlotte wonders why daddy can't come with them, and claims to know more about ancient Carthage than Hannibal himself. She also loves Geronimao Jackson - which proved she once lived among the Dharma folks before she came out and said it. Charlotte also tells them that the Orchid will be where the well is. Eventually, she also tells Daniel that she grew up on the island but then her mother moved away with her, and she never saw her father again, and her mother said Charlotte had made up the island. She's been trying to get back ever since - that's why she became an anthropologist. She remembers a 'crazy man' from when she was little, who scared her and told her that if she ever came back to the island she'd die, and she thinks that man was Daniel!

Charlotte appears to die in this episode, although perhaps she is only "mostly dead"! But even if she has died, with all this time-jumping, and the possibility that there are some to whom the rules don't apply, we still may not have seen the last of her.

When John gets underground by going down the well (although a flash makes the well vanish), Christian Shepherd finds him and rebukes him for having not done what he was told: he was supposed to move the island, not Ben. Christian suggests that listening to Ben never brought him any good - yet Christian tells John about Eloise Hawking, who seems to have a better view of Ben. But perhaps Ben has changed over the three years that intervened.

The "donkey wheel" had slipped off its axis - and that might be the reason for the flashes and the skipping around in time.

At the end, we seem to have confirmed for us that Eloise Hawking is indeed Daniel Faraday's mother. And the cliffhanger ending sets the stage for some revelations in next week's episode.

Roald Dahl's "Little Red Riding Hood and the Wolf"

Here's my son reciting Roald Dahl's hilarious poem "Little Red Riding Hood and the Wolf" (from his Revolting Rhymes):

LOST Mirror Matter

A student drew my attention to an interesting LOST meta-theory, in other words, an attempt to find a unifying thread that relates the physics and the mythology of LOST in an overarching explanatory framework. This one focuses on mirror matter. Fans of the show, those fascinated by physics, and people with too much time on their hands will definitely want to take a look.

Big Yellow Taxi, Bruckner's Symphonies and Scholarly Confusion Between Orality and Quantum Mechanics

Blogging is a great place to think out loud and present things in ways and with illustrations that one might not consider appropriate in a scholarly paper. As it happens, I'm getting ready to read a paper about oral tradition and the Synoptic Gospels at the Midwest Society of Biblical Literature Conference. I'm also reading Jesus, The Voice and the Text and will be blogging about it more systematically in the near future.

One striking notion that has come into New Testament studies via Werner Kelber, reaching him from the Parry-Lord school's work on oral folksongs and epics, is "equiprimordiality". Every instance of a story or saying being told or retold is a unique performance and is therefore even asserted at times to be "ultimately discontinuous" with respect to any other performance.

I am starting to fear that some scholars working in orality are mistaking their field for that of quantum mechanics. Even in the case of the latter there is still some debate about the subject among physicists, particularly about whether the impossibility of knowing both the position and movement of a "particle" simultaneously is a problem of measurement or indicates that "particles" do not have such properties until we take a measurement. But it certainly seems to be the case that virtual particles can pop into and out of existence. Some refer to this as "quantum weirdness", and there are other interesting examples of it as well.

Oral tradition is not quantum physics. It may be impossible to define what could be meant by the "original form" of a saying. We may also find it impossible to plot the trajectory of a saying. But anyone who has had any contact with communication via oral or largely oral modes of transmission are unlikely to be persuaded that one person's retelling of a story, or even one's own retelling of a story on some particular occasion, cannot influence later renditions.

With respect to the "original version", the problem may be illustrated by referring to Anton Bruckner's symphonies. It would be easy for someone to make a case that any symphony by Bruckner "does not exist" in the same sense that the Gospel of Mark "does not exist". We have multiple versions and manuscripts, and in the case of the symphonies we have evidence for the composer himself having continued to edit and change them even after their first performance. There is debate about which version of the symphonies ought to be performed, and most recordings in fact are of eclectic versions akin to the critical editions of the New Testament - not the same as any actual copy Bruckner produced, but an estimation of which version of various passages reflects the "final" accomplishment of Bruckner. Behind this is the awareness that authors can continue tinkering with "finished" works and make them seem worse rather than better to those who encounter them.

We might also turn to remakes of songs to illustrate the possibility of tracing relationships between performances. Of course, we are dealing with songs that have been recorded and written down, and so the cases are not precisely parallel. Nevertheless, if we take a song such as "Big Yellow Taxi", might we not legitimately detect in the version by the Counting Crows influence not only of the "original" (a concept itself problematic given the different renderings by Joni Mitchell herself) but also of subsequent remakes?







Scholars trying to sort out the relationship between the various "texts" could well make errors, especially if they are looking back 2,000 years from now. But the reference to DDT, for instance, might serve as a decisive clue about the time period in which the song originated, for instance. DDT is, I imagine, less of a pressing concern for the Counting Crows and their generation than it was for Joni Mitchell and hers. So too the price of admission might indicate a change of context. The fact that we have multiple performances by the original author obviously complicates matters - but how much so? The continued performance of the song even by Joni Mitchell herself makes the situation interesting, but it should be noted that her performances evolve over the decades in a way that is not unlike the development of those performing it as a cover song. And so perhaps it matters less who is performing? Perhaps "original" and "cover artist" can be expected to do similar things in relation to similar times and contexts?

I'm not sure how much this helps illustrate the phenomenon of multiple performances, orality, creativity, and the like. But even if each of the performances is "an original" and unique, we can still detect characteristics of specific performers/bands, and we can still trace trajectories of development over time, including the influence of this or that powerful performance on later renditions whether by that same performer or by others.



Of course, these are still illustrations from a modern context, and involve 'writing' (in the form of musical notation, recording, and editing). Perhaps tracing the history of certain jokes might be more apt - not to mention fun. It is, at any rate, difficult if not impossible to speak about the unfamiliar without analogy, and it is hard to find close analogies in a modern context to communication that largely bypasses or ignores writing of some sort at some point.

The Clever Badger on the Burial of Jesus

A review of my book The Burial of Jesus has been posted at The Clever Badger blog. Do take a look!

Christian Spam

I had someone leave a comment on the last post that had nothing whatsoever to do with it. It was a long evangelistic appeal, in essence, that used Pascal's wager (without giving credit and probably without knowing who Pascal was) and a lot of end-times pseudo-Biblical nonsense. As a rule I do not delete comments unless they are advertising spam, but this one seemed to have the potential to ruin a post where friends and family might leave comments encouraging my son with respect to his violin playing.

When you engage in "Christian spamming" you are not reclaiming spam for Christ. You are turning your Christianity into spam. And that, if you ask me, is a terrible thing.

Ottorino Respighi, Berceuse

My son and I performed Ottorino Respighi's Berceuse (No.1 from his Six Pieces for Violin and Piano). He played the violin, and I accompanied him on the piano. This has long been one of my favorite pieces of music for violin and piano. I hope you enjoy the video!

Gabriel McKee's Evil Twin?

If you haven't seen it already, Gabriel McKee has written a review, entitled "Wrong on Religion; Wrong on Science Fiction", for Internet Review of Science Fiction. It is a review of a book by James Herrick that I've also reviewed (my review gets mentioned in McKee's).

Update on the Mandaeans, February 2009

Thanks to April DeConick for drawing attention to a news piece on WFCR about the situation of the Mandaeans both in Iraq and in the United States. You can listen to the whole thing there.

Fearfully and Wonderfully Made Up

A commenter named Jason asked some thoughtful questions in the comments section of my previous post. I've decided to reproduce the comment here, and then reply at length:

I haven't actually watched this video yet (my daughter won the battle this morning to play myepets.com) but I have seen quite a few like it and enjoy watching them. But it is not hard to notice that most of these videos are produced by atheists (indeed, DonExodus2 is the only one I know who claims otherwise -catholic- but there could be more, I haven't looked that exhaustively). Now I'm sure you could quote me some statistic about the huge overlap of mainstream Christianity and belief in evolution and that is encouraging, but it seems most of them simply accept it on the word of scientists. I can't help but notice that those who really research it and promote it tend to much more heavily weighted on the atheist side then the general public.

I am a Christian and I would like to think that I am so not because I want to be, or it gives me comfort, or I am scared to die, or simply on "faith", I want to think I believe because God is a reality and Jesus is a reality, and Jesus death and resurrection are a reality. Reality, that is the key word. I now know evolution is a reality, and that the ark is not a "historical" reality, and indeed a whole other mess of things that challanged my simple evangelical faith of just a few years ago. I have slowly lost my fear of these things for there is no point in not accepting reality for what it is. But then I ask myself why any of my traidtional faith can be known as reality, and if so, why don't all those atheists see it to? Is it perhaps the obvious answer I don't want to admit, that I have very little evidence for that which I postulate to be the most important, so little that a great deal of educated people think I really don't have any. Is it because it basically makes more sense that not only is the beginning of my Bible filled with myths but a great deal of it, indeed that most of my religion is just made up?

This is hard, because it is so foreign to my childhood and even to my church experience today. Because in both contexts it wasn't about whether any of this was true, that was assumed, it was only a matter of whether you would repent of your sin and seek salvation. People weren't nonbelievers because they didn't find any reason whatsoever to believe (exactly parallel to why I wouldn't believe in Hindu, Buddhist, Taoist, Islamic, Norse, Greek, Roman religions->as these clearly were false:-) but because they didn't want to repent(!), they didn't want to give up control over their lives(!), or because they are proud.

Well I want to repent (and have repented!), and I want a savior (and have called on the name of the Lord Jesus!), and frankly having grown up in the Christian subculture my whole life there is nothing I need to "give up" to be a Christian...and yet I wonder now if it doesn't make a whole lot more sense that most of my religion, at least with respect to what we affirm as history, is made up. Dr. McGrath, I ask, is most of our religion just made up?

I want to reply in a way that not only addresses the very important and insightful questions you asked, but also challenges at least one assumption that seems to be behind the final question.

There's a contemporary praise song that includes the line "These words are not made up", and every time I hear it I find myself asking "They aren't?! Well then, what are they?!" Obviously "made up" can be used in a derogatory way, as a reference to something that is claimed deceitfully, something that is not merely fictional but a lie.

Some of the most powerful narrative in the Bible is "made up", not in the negative sense but in a positive one. I think that, for instance, so much of the discussion about Genesis 1-3 is utterly besides the point. A talking snake? Trees with astounding abilities? God strolling in a garden? Two sides go back and forth, one asserting the story's factuality, the other laughing at those who do so. And yet neither seems to realize that the story is not about a "guy named Adam" but about "Human" (which is what adam means in Hebrew, and there is a long history of reading it as about all of us rather than our ancestor.

I usually ask my class, when we talk about Genesis 2-3, a couple of questions. First, I ask who walks around "naked but not ashamed". I always worry someone will answer "my roomate", but usually the answer that is forthcoming is "children". I then ask a question that has yet to be answered: "When did you first realize you were naked?" No one has a clear recollection of the first instance. I can state, however, with a great degree of confidence that it wasn't a result of eating a literal, rather special fruit. "Knowledge of good and evil" in the Hebrew Bible is used in reference to maturity. And it is at the point we begin to become mature that we need to take responsibility for our actions, and begin to find ourselves making poor choices, and alienated from one another as a result.

I believe this story was "made up". I also find it insightful, provocative and powerful, just as I do other "made up" stories, such as the ones Jesus told. I could (indeed, professionally I sometimes do) spend a lot of time trying to figure out what we can know and with what degree of certainty about Jesus, the early Church, and from time to time also ancient Israel and even the Mandaeans. But it turns out that historical study doesn't give us certainty even in a best case scenario. It always leaves open the possibility that something we firmly believe happened didn't actually happen. And so the question I find I need to ask is no longer "What can I prove sufficiently about the past in order to build my worldview on it?" but "How can I live in response to a life-transforming experience of transcendence and meaning, in a way that holds on to things that are clearly valuable in the traditions I've inherited, but also takes seriously the very different context of our time?"

I now want to return to some of your earlier questions. I think there are a significant number of Christians who also happen to be biologists. I suspect that relatively few of them are visible for a number of reasons, one of which being that biologists in general are not all that visible - if a rock star or actor is a Christian, or whatever else, people hear about it, but biologists don't generally have star status. But Ken Miller, Francis Collins and Francisco Ayala are big names in biology, and each professes some form of Christian faith.

I think you are right that the majority of Christians who accept evolution do so because scientists with relevant expertise accept it. I don't think it should be otherwise. It certainly is wonderful if someone has the time and interest to become well informed about a subject outside their specialty, and for most of us evolution falls into that category. But if you don't have the time to inform yourself, then you really ought to accept what the scientific consensus is, and not a handful of engineers and preachers who tickle people's ears and tell them emotionally-charged things that they want to hear.

For me, my own personal faith has ceased to be about claiming certain things did or didn't happen in the past. That has its place. But I focus more on my own experience, and the reality that we inhabit now. If the teachings of Christianity are "true" in any meaningful sense, then we ought to be more concerned with how we treat others than with debating questions of history or even science. We should be more concerned with justice and righteousness than with just being right. And so, when it comes down to it, I consider your decision to spend time with your daughter on MyePets rather than watch a video on YouTube to have been a wise one.

Let me just conclude by saying that, ultimately, I don't feel like what I've provided is an "answer" in any sort of final sense to your question(s). I merely want to offer encouragement to keep asking them, and others like them. Because if we think about the line-up of atheists and Christians that you mentioned, we can forget that these are all people, most of whom are on journeys, and few of whom will hold precisely the same views for their entire lives without changing their minds. Some have travelled away from faith, others towards it, and some having left have found it again, or vice versa.

I mentioned earlier that, in the absence of a detailed study of one's own into a matter, it is good to trust the consensus of experts. But if one wants to do science, then one has to learn to investigate and evaluate, in ways that may uphold and build upon, but also may potentially challenge the consensus. In the same way, there are helpful guides on our religious journeys, but it is our individual seeking to live and to understand that constitutes doing religion. Your wrestling with your faith rather than merely taking it on the authority of others is a sign of spiritual health, if you ask me, even though some for whom "faith" is really "accepting what certain religious 'experts' say" may regard it with suspicion, perhaps even hostility.

The Chalk Cries Out

Thanks to AIG Busted for sharing this excellent YouTube video pointing out some major (i.e. glaringly obvious to anyone who looks at the evidence) problems with "flood geology". There's also some sarcastic humor to it too, making it all the more enjoyable.

LOST Untangled

For those trying to make sense of LOST, or who have just about given up on it, as well as die-hard fans, the new LOST Untangled video guide is not just helpful but funny.

Quote of the Day (F. Gerald Downing)

"Paul's refusal to deploy the arts of persuasion (1 Thess. 2.4; Gal. 1.10) is itself a topos from the world of rhetoric, evincing a common awareness of the dangers involved in being too adaptable to one's audience."

-- F. Gerald Downing, Doing Things With Words In The First Christian Century

(JSNTS 200, Sheffield Academic Press, 2000) p.84.

LOST and Found

Tonight's episode of LOST continues to explore the time-hopping experience of those who remained on the island, as well as the gathering (at ever-increasing pace) of the Oceanic 6. If you haven't seen the episode yet, spoilers follow. The fast pace presumably is not only because they only have 70 hours to accomplish it, but also because we all have presumed from the beginning that they will go back. There are some really wonderful moments, but Jin's rescue by the survivors from the French ship probably tops them all.

The best line is when Sawyer suggests Locke might want to talk to his earlier self, warn him about the future and save him some pain. Locke replies that he "needed that pain" to get where he is today. I've reflected before that I probably wouldn't try to change my path - not that my younger self would listen to what I have to say now. I suspect that such a conversation would go much like one of my recent attempts at conversation here. But I do like to hope that, even if a future me might not be able to change my mind right away, I would learn more from the interaction than my past self probably would have.

As for mysteries, the episode dropped an interesting clue. Daniel suggests that the reason for the nosebleeds after the time-skips has to do with length of exposure to the island. When Miles has a nosebleed, this doesn't make sense, since he says he's never been to the island before. Daniel replies by asking him if he is sure. Presumably we are meant to deduce that Miles is the son of Pierre Chang! If his parents were killed (during the purge?) but he was rescued and raised/adopted by others, that would explain why he has a different last name. Then again, perhaps we have simply not heard all of Chang's last names yet.

I've been reading Bad Twin, and if there is one thing that it leads me to suspect, it is that neither Benjamin Linus nor Charles Widmore is simply good or bad. Both will turn out to be complex. The theme of dualities and polar opposites is brought up in the novel, but only in order to complicate them, and to point out how similar opposites such as "good" and "evil" are. Like "2" and "-2", at times it can be easy to mistake one for the other.

2009 Inspiration Awards -- for Inspirational Bloggers

I'm honored that Pastor Bob Cornwall would single out my blog from among so many as one that he particularly finds inspiring. Thank you!

It is my duty to pass on the honor to others. As I try to do so, I find it incredibly difficult to narrow down the extensive list of blogs I sometimes read, or even the long list of blogs I read daily/regularly, and pick a few that have inspired me more than others. Many have inspired me from time to time. And so I've decided to focus on a few that have been "inspirational" in the multiple meanings of that term, as well as specifically inspiring for me in recent weeks. I apologize to the many other blogs of which I am a huge fan if your name is not on the list. It is because of the rules of the award meme, and not because of a lack of appreciation! I particularly apologize to the biblioblogging community and to those blogs that focus specifically on evolution and creation - I simply couldn't pick a small number from among the several blogs I highly esteem in these specific categories, and so I left you all out (as well as many others)!

Here are my five:

1) Mike Leaptrott's Progression of Faith

2) Wade Greiner's The Evolution of the Mystery

3) Adam Walker Cleaveland's pomomusings

4) Levi's blah blah blah

5) Stephen Douglas' Undeception

Several of these blogs are the work of pastors, but all of them seek to relate a serious (at times academic) reading of the Bible with relevance to communities of faith and the world in general, and to do so in creative and at times courageous ways. They all are typified by a combination of critical thinking and pastoral sensitivity, and of a desire to not segregate the two but to allow their faith to be one about which they reflect critically. I don't always agree with them, but those instances often teach me more than the instances when I do agree with them.

Now go forth and share this honor with 5-7 blogs that have inspired you. And if it isn't too much trouble, perhaps you can begin to spread the joy among those categories in which I could not decide.

Quote of the Day (Candace Chellew-Hodge)

"Those who challenge our beliefs or push our emotional buttons are in our lives to teach us how to go deeper into ourselves and defuse our emotional hot buttons. Opposition is a gift to LGBT believers because it forces us to consider our beliefs and why we believe them. We can’t complacently or blithely give our assent to beliefs like heterosexual Christians can. We have to work out our own salvation with fear and trembling. In doing so, we build a stronger faith and learn how to live authentically as the people God created us to be."

-- Candace Chellew-Hodge, "RD10Q: Spiritual Survival for LGBT Christians" at Religion Dispatches

NOTE: I considered at one point omitting the words that applied this point specifically to homosexual Christians, since it seems that there is an underlying truth that can be embraced and appreciated by all Christians, namely that opposition is something beneficial rather than detrimental to our spiritual health. But I decided to give the full quote so that readers can better appreciate not only this author's insight but the experiences that have led her to have it.

Recession Hits The Galactic Empire

Apparently the economic struggles of the present day are not limited to our planet or our galaxy. Here's a video of ex-Emperor Palpatine's struggle to find work here on Earth:

(HT SF Signal)

Spontaneous Generation in the Bible?

My reference to spontaneous generation in my last blog entry has generated some interesting discussion, so I thought it would be good to single out that subject in a separate post, and give it the attention it deserves.

The subject is connected not only to the simple (ha!) question of what the Biblical authors wrote, but also the question of whether, if the Biblical authors use phrases and concepts that were also used by their contemporaries, we ought to assume that they meant what their contemporaries meant, unless they specify otherwise.

In poking around on the web for ancient sources, I found a reference to Lucretius' De Rerum Natura (On The Nature Of Things) that sounds rather like what we find in the Bible. Aram Vartanian, in his article in the Dictionary of the History of Ideas on "Spontaneous Generation", summarizes Lucretius' view as follows:

“Mother Earth” had long ago, while in her prime, created all plant and animal species, including man himself, immediately out of her own substance—a creative power of which, in her tired old age, some traces still remained in the similar generation of certain low forms of life.

This sounds to me a lot like what is envisaged in Genesis 1:24, the only difference being the author of Genesis' emphasis on the Earth producing living things at God's command, making God the ultimate (albeit not the direct) source of life.

Clearly the author of Genesis was not an Epicurean, but that's precisely the point. Spontaneous generation was not the view of one particular philosophical school in ancient Greece, but the generally-accepted viewpoint in many cultures up until the time of Pasteur.

What do others think? One comment suggested that the story of the Exodus (presumably the plagues in which frogs seem to be produced by the waters or gnats by the Earth/dust) as a possible example, and Judges 14:8 (bees in a lion's carcass) as another. In neither case does it specify that the background of thought is spontaneous generation. The question is whether, given that that was the understanding ancient peoples had, we should posit that as the background here too, since the authors do not specify that they meant something different. Is there any reason not to posit such a background, apart from the desire to have the ancient authors of Scripture not be wrong about matters of modern science?

Sunday School: Genesis 1:1-2:3

Today in my Sunday school class we started a series on the creation stories. Before trying to ask how the natural sciences might cause us to reflect in new and different ways about God and our place in the universe, it is usually helpful for Christians to look first at the creation stories, and consider what they do and do not tell us. Today our focus was on the story of creation in 7 days found in Genesis 1:1-2:3. Many of the subjects we touched on are ones I regularly cover in my course on the Bible, such as the similarities and differences between Genesis 1 and the Babylonian creation epic Enuma Elish being a key to understanding the text.

A key point I made, as always, is that no one (even if they call themselves literalists) takes the dome literally. To single out evolutionary biology as though it were more at odds with Christian faith than other realms of scientific explanation is likewise unjustified.

Also mentioned was the fact that the text of Genesis 1 depicts God commanding the earth to bring forth life, rather than creating in some more direct manner. Although we did not get to talk about it in the class, this presumably reflects the ancient understanding of the origin of life in terms of spontaneous generation. Ironically, while some creationists actually appeal to Pasteur as an ally against evolution, in fact, Pasteur's conclusion is at odds with Genesis 1, while evolution explains currently existing life forms as deriving from earlier ones. If the reference is not to spontaneous generation, then one has to imagine God imbuing the earth with creative potency, only to revoke the gift at some later point for no obvious reason.

The question of authorship came up briefly. Next time we'll discuss whether there is more than one creation story in these early chapters of Genesis.

Top 50 Biblioblogs for January 2009

Many thanks to NT Wrong for arising (like an ancient fertility deity or the Great Pumpkin) to list the top 50 biblioblogs for the month of January. I am grateful for the honor of being #1, but perhaps even more grateful for the other very interesting blogs that have once again been brought to my attention and that of others by this monthly listing.

For those of you interested in the semi-retired NT Wrong, Jim West has an interview with him at Biblioblogs.com, including a photo.