Category Archives: The Bible and Modern Culture

In Defense of Jesus:
A Challenge To Those Claiming To “Follow Jesus” (part I)

Like many, I have grown tired of hearing overzealous Christian apologists and fundamentalists claim that they “follow Jesus” or are “followers of Jesus.” Why?

  • Because (1) as a biblical scholar (PhD in New Testament & Early Christianity), I actually know what such claims meant to Jesus and his real 1st-2nd century followers, based on both textual and cultural evidence.

  • And (2) as an ancient historian, I am also aware of the radical and glaring differences between our 21st century socioeconomic worldview, values, feigned religious beliefs, ethics, judicial ideas, and views of the Self and the world, and those of Jesus’ own time period, which, in point of fact, he and his followers sought to overturn (see forthcoming)—differences, in other words, that make it impossible to follow Jesus in the 21st century, and would have made it extremely difficult to have done so in the 1
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Whose Bible is it anyway?

If you’re following the latest Yahoo news feed [here], then you know that another modernized translation (more appropriately aberration) of the best-loved, best-selling classic “the Bible” has apparently squeezed itself onto bookshelves across America right next to the already densely populated and voluminous (and worthless it might be added) collection of modernized versions of the Bible, written specifically for: the modern man, the modern women, the teen, the pre-teen, the pre-pre-teen, the pregnant mom, the knife-flaying chef, the chicken-soup soul seeker, the manly man’s group huddle in their basement man-cave, grandpa and grandma, and even the dandy across the street. How blessed are we to have such an extensive proliferation of the Almighty’s word!, extracted and personally sculpted to fit the needs of every American on this plant. Or more so, what a lucrative business this has all become!

This latest version fancies itself “The Voice” and attempts … Read more

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