For some reason the doctrine of original sin is problematic. It (along with the notion that the Godhead defies mathematics, by being both three and one) is one of the most often rejected Christian ideas. It is also apparently one of the drivers of the “Adam and Eve have to be actual people else the [...]
Browsing Posts published in February, 2012
It’s the weekend :) Time to cook and eat :) But, though we know better, we all cut corners. In cooking some corners can safely be cut (caramelising onions can be hurried – a bit – by adding a little salt and sugar and water from time to time, so allowing a slightly higher heat) [...]
Defining humour is very difficult or impossible. 1 So, a fortiori, defining “black humour” must be doubly impossible. Even delineating the boundaries of “black humour” is difficult. The coiner of the phrase, the surrealist André Breton,2 evidently saw it as anarchist and in a sense negative, pointing out the absurd and pretentious, but not offering any [...]
Gavin has updated is fine simple description of the various Christian Bibles and how they came to be. Anyone who thinks they are a Bible student, and who could not write a decent essay on the development of the different Christian Bibles (which includes quite a lot of people with degrees in the field ;) [...]
St. Eutychus has an entertaining take on biblical criticism, all explained with forks: Fork Criticism: Understanding Biblical scholarship through cutlery… Having always had a surrealist streak I offer the following thoroughly derivative and trivial contribution to the discussion:
AKMA has suggested (though it is phrased as a question: Time for FOSOT(NT)T? I think it was really a suggestion) that it is perhaps time to really start seriously on the project of producing a Free Open Source Textbook (probably as a prototype for a possible series). Brooke (another initial primary discussant) seems both willing [...]
Today was a “half-work” day at Cloudy Paddocks. I got all the work I needed to done in half a day, and so could spend the other half on fencing the pig paddock. This is brilliant when it works as (on the change is as good as a rest principle) I get more than half [...]
I was recently asked about the ethics of animal testing. While I’m aware that it is a very contentious issue for “animal rights activists” it is not one I have thought much about. Though, since I grow animals to eat, I am closer existentially to that related issue than someone who gets their meat from [...]
If you would like a review copy of the print version of my new book: Tim Bulkeley, Not Only a Father: Talk of God as Mother in the Bible & Christian Tradition (Signs) Auckland: Archer Press, 2011 ISBN: 978-1468091373 Please contact me, please say both where you expect to publish the review (blogs are quite [...]
I’m sure people who claim the verbal inspiration of Scripture have an answer, but I’m puzzled. Jesus says in Mat 19 and Mark 10 that “Moses”1 gave permission for divorce “because of your hardness of heart”. Does this mean that Jesus considered Deut 24 to be Moses’ own teaching? Please do not answer on behalf [...]
