Elaine Pagels is an unlikely celebrity. It is not often that professors of religion write books which so thoroughly and successfully straddle the professional/popular divide. Pagels has written many such books:
The Gnostic Gospels
Adam, Eve, and the Serpent: Sex and Politics in Early Christianity
The Origin of Satan: How Christians Demonized Jews, Pagans, and [...]
Tags:apocalypse·bible·Book of Revelation·canonization·Catholic Church·Christian history·Constantine·Elaine Pagels·exegesis·Gnostic Gospels·John of Patmos·Left Behind·prophecy·rapture·Revelation·Satan·the Beast
Using some strong and surprising language, biblical scholar Bart Ehrman has called out his peers for using the term “pseudepigrapha” when referring to books of the bible that were written by people claiming to be apostles but who obviously were not:
[G]ood Christian scholars of the Bible, including the top Protestant and Catholic scholars of America, [...]
Tags:Bart Ehrman·bible·biblical authorship·biblical literalism·Christianity·Christians·exegesis·Forged·identity theft·pseudepigrapha
Philology is alive and well, though it does not go by that name anymore. When philologists focus on the Bible, the results are usually unsettling for those who believe this collection of disparate writings to be the handiwork of God. For some, philological analysis of the Bible can lead to disbelief.
This certainly was the case [...]
Tags:Bart Ehrman·bible·Christianity·exegesis·Friedrich Nietzsche·manuscripts·Misquoting Jesus·New Testament·philology·scribes·textual criticism
If you occasionally wander over to HuffPo Religion (I do not recommend doing it too often), you will notice all kinds of articles offering all sorts of authoritative or alternative interpretations of religious texts such as the Bible, Koran, Torah, Rig Veda, etc.
In not one of these articles will you ever be told there are [...]
Tags:exegesis·hermeneutics·HuffPo Religion·interpretation·interpretive communities·Is There a Text In This Class·Literary Theory: An Introduction·religions of the book·religious texts·Stanley Fish·Terry Eagleton·theological disputation
In the beginning, I had some hope for the Huffington Post’s relatively new section devoted to religion. Here was a forum, I thought, where difficult questions could be asked and possible answers ventured. Not once, however, have I read a post which asks a tough question, which might include any of the following:
What is “religion”?
Why [...]
Tags:compassion·deities·demons·doctrines·ecumenical·educated·enlightened·ethics·exegesis·existential·Frank Schaeffer·fundamentalism·fuzzy·gods·hermeneutics·Huffington Post·HuffPo Religion·Jay Michaelson·liberal·literalism·love·meaning·morals·mystical·mysticism·myth·progressive·purpose·sophisticated·souls·spirits·syncretic·vague
