Good news for those of us (i.e., us at Holey Books) who use the excellent online Bible site BibleGateway: the site now has the Newly Revised Standard Version (NRSV) online. While most anyone who is serious about analyzing the Bible … Continue reading
There always seems to be a way to connect current events to the Bible, in some fashion, relevantly or irrelevantly. (It’s usually the latter.) But in the case of the David Petraeus scandal, however, it’s (surprisingly) the former: The Washington … Continue reading
Shortly after their victory at Jericho—which likely never happened—the Israelites, according to the Book of Joshua, are facing some military setbacks (Josh. 7). Naturally, the cause of these new problems is related to the reason for their prior victory: following … Continue reading
A previous post on this site criticized a post by Rachel Held Evans, who didn’t apply much rigor to her thinking about the variance of Biblical interpretations. Interestingly enough, perhaps she was too busy following many pointless details—Evans decided to … Continue reading
Rachel Held Evans: The fact that the Bible lends itself to competing interpretations should be cause for celebration rather than dismay, for these competing interpretations among people of faith who love and value Scripture help bring us into relationship with … Continue reading
I’m going to get straight to the point of this post: there were never any walls around Jericho. The Bible was most likely wrong. The story in Josh. 6—of the walls of Jericho falling down after the Israelites marched around … Continue reading
At Holey Books, we’ve come across our share of scriptural commentary, and usually prefer to read what reasonable scholars (such as James Kugel) have to say about the various bits of scripture we talk about. But occasionally—as recently in a post … Continue reading
Over in his daily “My Answer” column, Billy Graham addresses the question of a reader: Do the Dead Sea Scrolls contradict the Bible? Sadly, while Rev. Graham does get some of the history right, his ultimate analysis is lacking—and borderline … Continue reading
We all know the Jericho story pretty well—at least, if we’ve had much in the way of Bible schools, religious studies, or scriptural readings, we are familiar with how the walls of the city came tumbling down. We also know … Continue reading
As readers of this site are probably aware, Karen King, Christian history scholar, caused quite a stir in religious circles with a surprise announcement regarding a fragment of an ancient document that quotes Jesus talking about his “wife.” While at Holey … Continue reading
