It’s that time of year again. Easter always brings out the best in Jesus paleobabble.
James McGrath reminds us of the Easter War on Information Literacy. That’s a kinder title than Semitic languages professor, Matthew Suriano, tweeted to his followers about McGrath’s essay (“Wow, people are still posting that bullshit meme: This is Ishtar: Pronounced ‘Easter'”). You betcha, Matthew. And there’s more where that came from.
Like other scholars of ancient Christianity and biblical studies, I have bones to pick with Candida Moss’ take on persecution in the early church. But she wrote a pretty even-handed piece today for CNN’s BeliefNet entitled, “Did Christians really ‘steal’ Easter?” It’s a short summary of the problems of Jesus mythicist thinking, as well as how conservative Christians overstate the uniqueness of the resurrection of Jesus. I don’t agree with every line in it, but she’s fair.
