Professor Larry Hurtado on Christian worship of Jesus

Professor Larry Hurtado has an interesting article on early Christian veneration of Jesus.

Professor Hurtado writes ' It is one thing to imagine the deification of a human hero in a setting in which that was entirely expected and had multiple precedents. It is quite another in a religious culture that forbids it! It’s the latter setting in which Jesus-devotion erupted.'

One wonders why Jews did not forbid Christians worshipping Jesus in the middle of Jerusalem. Why were they not killed as idolators?

And what did the Romans think about this 'deification of a human hero' - somebody they had crucified as a potential troublemaker?

A reported letter in Acts 23 says 'Claudius Lysias,

To His Excellency, Governor Felix:

Greetings.

This man was seized by the Jews and they were about to kill him, but I came with my troops and rescued him, for I had learned that he is a Roman citizen. I wanted to know why they were accusing him, so I brought him to their Sanhedrin. I found that the accusation had to do with questions about their law, but there was no charge against him that deserved death or imprisonment.'

The Christians were venerating a human, and the dispute had to do 'with questions about their law'?

And the Romans were too dumb to realise that Paul was a follower of somebody they had killed as a potential troublemaker, and who Paul was claiming was still alive and leading their movement?

Where is the elephant in the room? Where did Jesus go in disputes between Christians/Jews/Romans? It is as though he had never been!

William Lane Craig and his Scooby Doo God

In the cartoon series , Scooby Doo, the villain would always have succeeded in his plans, if it wasn't for meddling kids.

The famous Christian apologist, William Lane Craig, thinks his God is like a villain in a cartoon series. A few children can easily wreck his plans.

I quote Craig in Slaughter of the Canaanites God knew that if these Canaanite children were allowed to live, they would spell the undoing of Israel. The killing of the Canaanite children not only served to prevent assimilation to Canaanite identity but also served as a shattering, tangible illustration of Israel’s being set exclusively apart for God.

Craig's solution is for his alleged god to have all the children killed.

Then they wouldn't be able to wreck his plans.

No wonder Christians consider William Lane Craig a suitable person to debate Richard Dawkins, Polly Toynbee or Stephen Law. There is no answer to Craig's logic. How can you argue with somebody whose solution to children being in God's way is to kill the children?

English Bishops save the world

Perhaps you remember the scene in Father Ted, when assembled clergy, unable to think of anything useful to do, decide to hold a mass.

Well, English Bishops are not to be outdone when it comes to spectacularly useless feats.

The Bishop of Oxford is, wait for it , visiting churches

The strange thing is that the BBC, to which I pay my licence fee, apparently thinks it is worth spending money to cover the story 'Bishop visits church'.

How can 'Bishop visits churches' be a)news and b) something even an English Bishop can not realise is hardly going to save the world

Just how irrelevant can the Church of England make itself before it begins to appear that they are masters of irony?

Bishop Nick Baines on why Christian values are the best

Bishop Nick Baines has an interesting article about how the Christian set of values (NB not Jewish, or Muslim) are the best

'David Bentley Hart’s argument – backed up with copious historical analysis and evidence – is essentially that the pre-Christian world actually saw human life as expendable and cheap. What he terms ‘the Christian revolution’ brought about a ‘universal’ valuing of human life, of mercy and justice that did not hold sway beforehand.'


Bishop Baines probably had no idea about the beliefs of William Lane Craig, the person his same blog post championed as somebody atheists were scared to debate over arguments and evidence.

I quote William Lane Craig

‘God knew that if these Canaanite children were allowed to live, they would spell the undoing of Israel. The killing of the Canaanite children not only served to prevent assimilation to Canaanite identity but also served as a shattering, tangible illustration of Israel’s being set exclusively apart for God.’

Craig’s solution is for his alleged god to have all the children killed.

Then they wouldn’t be able to wreck his plans.

Perhaps Christian Bishops should not be so quick to claim that Christians preach the value of life while the very people they themslves champion as defenders of Christianity have no problems with the idea that whole tribes of men, women and children can be killed to further the plans of their god.