I just finished Joseph Atwill's book, Caesar's Messiah. I didn't really take me a month to read, I just put it down several times to play video games and be a dad. It's a well-written book that kept me mostly enthralled throughout. But it's also bringing forward some tremendous ideas that frankly take a little time to digest -- and this is coming ( Read more... )

Quite a milestone was reached last week when I published my book, Janus in Nicea.  I had started the blog "Pokey Finger of God" some years ago when I realized that the state of my study of Early Church history was such that it needed a home away from Live Journal. After continued work in it, I received a great number of responses from friends who ( Read more... )

No, sir. I don't like St. Patrick's Day ( Read more... )

There has been some discussion of late about President Obama’s claim of being Christian. Besides the ones who obliviously presume that he must be Muslim, or parse out of unrelated texts the notion that a presumed birthright to Islam is obligatory, there are others who question whether his Christianity is ‘real’. However, many problems arise ( Read more... )

Imagine a large beach, with the tide flowing in from the south-east unable to completely cover an spiny arc of rock along the south and just tipping into some tide pools on the west end of the beach. There's a whole stretch of land along the north that never gets surf and instead grows thick trees. When the tide is low, everything is dry except for ( Read more... )

I'm enjoying the Marvin Vining book, Jesus the Wicked Priest, but not because I agree with his conclusions. In fact, the more I read, the further removed I become from agreement. He's another armchair archaeologist, so I feel a certain kinship with him. This despite the fact that the guy has to go through some mesmerizing gyrations to tie his pet ( Read more... )

The latest issue of BAR revisits the much hyped Gospel of Judas, and has some unkind words for National Geographic and their media-heavy release of the original material. The biggest complaint was that they picked the wrong scholars who didn't understand Gnostic cultures and misinterpreted key passages of the text. Most significantly, NatlGeo ( Read more... )

The following text outlines my current understanding regarding the origins of Christianity. As usual, it's chock full of speculation, which I like to pretend is rather well informed speculation, naturally.

( Very long. Read with coffee. )

Cultural congruity is a relative measure of the cultural distinctiveness between two organizations and /or individuals. Cultural congruity is noted by a person when another person or group makes them feel "at home". Conversely, cultures are considered incongruous when the customs or habits of others are perceived as being very different ( Read more... )

I mentioned Dungan's Constantine's Bible the other day before I had finished reading it. I fear that I made it sound like a lame book, and I'm glad I didn't let my waning enthusiasm sour me on it before I was done.

( An optimist is never pleasantly surprised. )