The Roundup – 8.24.25

“As an arbiter of moral values and guide to right behavior, the Bible had no cultural rival in mid-nineteenth century America…. Biblical literalism authorized and sanctified racial prejudices and the social order built upon them.”
– Richard Carwardine, Righteous Strife: How Warring Religious Nationalists Forged Lincoln’s Union (Alfred A. Knopf, 2025), 223.

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• What is the “Great Omission”? Mark Goodacre explains. (Yes, I’ve been featuring Goodacre a lot lately. I make no apologies!) See also Paul Davidson’s post on the subject.

• During my Reformed days, I had a growing appreciation for Doug Wilson. But I didn’t know everything about him and it wasn’t until after I left Christianity that I learned more and more problematic things about him. Kristin Du Mez, the author of Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation, writes about Wilson’s rise within mainstream evangelicalism (thanks in part to John Piper) and what happens when people try to confront the theology Wilson and his ilk espouse.
• A new book has dropped on the ending of Mark’s Gospel and it’s free to download!
• Samuel Davis put up a clip from his interview of Dale Allison on Jesus’s eschatological beliefs.

• Back in June there was a conference at UC San Diego called “Exodus in Transdisciplinary Perspective.” And all the lectures are available online! (HT: Lex Lata.)

• Did Moses exist? Personally, I’m inclined to think there was a Moses but he was not much like what we find in the Torah. (As I’ve made clear before, I’m partial to Richard Elliot Friedman’s views on the Exodus event and related issues.) A few months ago, Aaron Adair discussed the existence of Moses over at YouTube. Spoiler: Adair thinks Moses never existed; he was a figure from Egyptian lore taken over in the post-exilic era by those creating the Torah.

• Steve Wiggins, who has written about horror and the Bible, has a new book out on The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. Here he is being interviewed on it for TheoFantastique.

• The Synoptic Gospels claim Jesus cleared out the temple right before his death. The Gospel of John claims it happened near the beginning of his ministry. Does that mean it happened twice? John Nelson discusses.
• It may not be biblical studies related, but I’ve been spent an ungodly amount of time watching and rewatching Allan Sherman’s “Camp Granada” from 1963. My dad used to sing this song (or, at least some of it) when I was a kid way back in the 80s and hearing it brings back fond memories. Take a few minutes and listen. It’s really funny!