On Saturday I was sitting in a comfortable chair in front of a large window with a nice cup of coffee watching the sun slowly rise.  I was in a contemplative mood, not dwelling on the quotidian duties bound to occupy me in the hours ahead, but thinking about some of the Big Issues in life, or at least in my life. I had two thoughts that I’d like to pass along.  At the time I wondered if they were possibly, but not necessarily, standing at odds with each other.  If so, so be it! The first had to do with the world all around and before me at the time.  The sunrise was glorious as the earth rotated and the sky slowly brightened, mixing colors in the scattered clouds above.  I started thinking both bout how amazing the natural world is and about how, at the end of the day, I think that all of it – every aspect of it – consists of material elements. At heart I’m a materialist.  [...]

Over the years I’ve done a lot of public debates, and deep down I suppose I think they can do some good.  Maybe not on a large scale, but at least for a few individuals in the audience who are open both to thinking about an important issue and to realizing that the view they’ve always held and simply assumed to be true may not be.  If there are 300 people there and five of them are like that, OK, that’s great.  Think Genesis 18:23-33. On the other hand, even though I get enthusiastic when I do debates, I really don’t enjoy them.  I’m not sure I’ve ever enjoyed one.  As some of you have heard me say, in virtually every debate I’m in, part way through I start writing notes to myself:  “WHY are you doing this??” I had a debate last week with my friend and conservative evangelical apologist Mike Licona on whether the apostolic “authorities” Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John actually wrote the Gospels named after them.  During the debate, [...]

Last week, for some reason I can’t remember (!) I decided to see what I had written about the book of Zechariah in my textbook, The Bible: A Historical and Literary Introduction (Oxford University Press).  As I read it, I thought — I bet most people on the blog haven’t actually read Zechariah (one of the Minor Prophets in the Old Testament — called “minor” not because they are unimportant but because they are shorter than the “major” ones — Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel…).  And I bet most people who have read it couldn’t summarize it to save the planet.  And hey, why should they?  (Summarize it; not save the planet…) So why not give a bit of info on it?  It’s a great little book.  Here’s what I say about it in my undergraduate textbook. ZECHARIAH Like other books of the Hebrew Bible (most famously Isaiah) the book of Zechariah does not appear to be the work of a single writer. Scholars have long considered Zechariah 1–8 to be by one author (called First Zechariah) and 9–14 by a different one, living later (Second Zechariah). First Zechariah [...]

In a post a few days ago I pointed out that people often don’t clearly differentiate between the nuances of words that mean similar but not identical things, and that this leads to misunderstandings. I posed a challenge then for readers to differentiate between the words: Error Mistake Falsehood Deceit Lie Some of you took me up on the challenge.  I’m not able to comment on all the responses, but I will say: Well Done! The point of the exercise was to stress that if we don’t have a clear idea of the differences between these related terms, we both mis-communicate with others and mis-interpret what others are saying. That happens – in the two examples I gave – when someone says that if the disciples claimed they saw Jesus after the resurrection but did not then they were “lying,” and when someone claims that if a Gospel writer intentionally reports that Jesus said the opposite of what he actually did say, it is not an error (since he changed Jesus’ words on [...]