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Bart’s Going Viral–And You Can Help!
From Diane: Hi, Bart fans–Bart is too modest to blow his own horn about this, but Academic YouTuber Dan McClellan (@maklelan) has posted a short video debunking an apologist’s video trashing Bart. Dan is a master at this–watch below, and make sure to Like the video (instructions at bottom). The original creator tried to slap back–it didn’t go well for him: You can help this video go viral by clicking on “YouTube” at the bottom of the video, then give it a like by clicking the little thumbs-up icon under the video (see below). It’s got 1,000 likes as of this morning, and 10,000 views…let’s join in:
December 7, 2023
December 2023 Platinum webinar
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December 15, 2023
December Gold Q&A Video
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December 28, 2023
2023 In Review
The blog has done extremely well this past year, thanks to you the members and the core of people who work to keep it going. Here on our annual last day I’d like to take look back on what has happened and talk a bit about what lies ahead. I’m particularly pleased that we have continued to meet our two goals for the blog, which drove us to start it over eleven years ago now: To provide scholarly knowledge about the historical Jesus, the New Testament, and the other Christian writings of the first three or four centuries to a broad non-scholarly audience. To raise money for charities while doing it, highly reputable, responsible, and effective organizations that deal with hunger, homelessness, disaster relief, and literacy. To start with the charity: once more we have done extremely well, having distributed (as of today) just over $480,000. To put that into a bit of perspective, our first full year of operation, exactly ten years ago, we raised $54,000. I’m no mathematician, but by my count that’s […]
December 30, 2023
Atonement Doctrine – A Platinum Post by Manuel Fiadeiro
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January 26, 2024
Gospel Thrillers Part I by Andrew Jacobs
Probably all (nearly all?) of us have read thrillers, and all of us (certainly!) have heard of Gospels. And some of us have read “Gospel Thrillers.” But do you know what a Gospel Thriller is? You’ve probably never heard the term because it was recently coined by scholar of late antiquity Andrew Jacobs, in his intriguing analysis of them (the first analysis ever done), accessible to lay people (hey, we’re talkin’ thrillers here) just now being published: Gospel Thrillers: Conspiracy, Fiction, and the Vulnerable Bible (Cambridge University Press). Check it out! Gospel Thrillers: Conspiracy, Fiction, and the Vulnerable Bible: Jacobs, Andrew S.: 9781009384612: Amazon.com: Books I’ve known Andrew since he was a graduate student at Duke many-a-year ago. He is now a Senior Research Fellow at the Center of World Religions at Harvard. He is one of the leading figures in the study of Christianity of Late Antiquity (currently the President of the main professional society, North American Patristics Society). The book is terrific, and so I’ve asked Andrew to write a few blog posts […]
February 7, 2024
Gospel Thrillers Part II by Andrew Jacobs
Gospel Thrillers! Who woulda thought? Many of us knew of books like this, but never realized they were a coherent (sub-)genre, and certainly never thought much about how to understand them. Here now is Andrew Jacobs second post on his new book Gospel Thrillers: Conspiracy, Fiction and the Vulnerable Bible, which you can get at your favorite book-buying spot, including here: Gospel Thrillers: Conspiracy, Fiction, and the Vulnerable Bible: Jacobs, Andrew S.: 9781009384612: Amazon.com: Books ****************************** II. Inside the Gospel Thrillers In my first post I described what Gospel Thrillers are and their role in US culture: they magnify, probe, and contain popular fears and desires about the vulnerability of the Bible by imagining a conspiracy surrounding a newly discovered first-century gospel. In this second post, I describe in more detail some of the “bombshell” secrets these novels invent and the specific fantasies and anxieties about the Bible they illuminate. Desert Fantasies Many of the books imagine new discoveries emerging from the Middle East. Some of these are supposedly part of the […]
February 8, 2024
Gospel Thrillers Part III by Andrew Jacobs
In this third and final post on his new book Gospel Thrillers, Andrew Jacobs moves into where the rubber meets my (our) road: how these novels really do seem like real life when you think about Bible scholarship and the real discoveries (or discoveries *claimed* to have been made, by bona fide scholars) of new Gospels that threaten to undo everything we think about Jesus and / or the New Testament. Intriguing stuff. What do you think? You can get Andrew’s just now published book anywhere good books are sold, including here: Gospel Thrillers: Conspiracy, Fiction, and the Vulnerable Bible: Jacobs, Andrew S.: 9781009384612: Amazon.com: Books ****************************** III. Gospel Thrillers come to Life In my first blogpost I described the quirky genre of novels I call Gospel Thrillers and the way they illuminate cultural fears and desires about the Bible; I then described some of their “bombshell” secrets which, at the end most novels, turn out to be duds: readers of conspiratorial fictions more often want status quo restored than to see our […]
February 10, 2024
We Need a Blog Volunteer! Do You Have Experience With Non-profit Taxes?
A major part of the success of the blog is the corps of faithful volunteers who do a variety of tasks, some to make the blog much better and some to make it even possible. The only perk that volunteers get, in addition to knowing they’ve helped advance the spread of biblical knowledge to a wider audience and raised significant funds for charity in doing so, is a monthly webinar with me on a topic of their choice. Those are a blast. But for the most part, volunteers volunteer because they believe in the cause and are unusually generous human beings. We need another volunteer, someone who is qualified to file our state and federal taxes. We are, as you know, a non-profit, and our long-devoted and highly-capable books-person has recently had to bow out from the position. We need someone with experience in this kind of thing. Anyone with experience will not find ours a tough-case. You interested? If so, please email us at [email protected] to let us know, and tell us a bit about […]
January 28, 2024
January Gold Q&A Video
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February 7, 2024
February Gold Q&A Video
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February 20, 2024
Platinum Webinar for March: Ethics Without God??
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March 6, 2024
March Gold Q&A Video
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March 19, 2024
March 2024 Platinum webinar
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March 27, 2024
Did People Have Time for Jesus? – a Platinum Post from Doug Wadeson, MD.
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April 12, 2024
“Lovemaking” in the Song of Songs – Platinum Post From Dan Kohanski
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April 19, 2024
Could Moses be Thutmose, the Overseer of the Borderlands? – Platinum Post from Serene
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April 15, 2024
April Gold Q&A: Ask Away!
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April 12, 2024
June Gold Q&A: Whaddya Wanna Know?
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June 17, 2024
May Gold Q&A: Keep Those (Metaphorical) Cards & Letters Coming!
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May 9, 2024