The Roundup – 4.26.26

1 thought on “The Roundup – 4.26.26”

1. 

   J Source 27 Apr 2026 — 4:17 am

   Thanks for the new Weekly Roundup.

   A lot of things came to mind with this one:

   • Regarding the opening quotation, I was familiar with how many Church Fathers interpreted Genesis allegorically and thought the phrase “dinosaur fetish” for YECers was apt (especially given their tendency to think that any reptile-type biblical monster is either a dinosaur reference or typical of Satan.) Weren’t there a few early theologians, though who thought the age of the earth was in the thousands of years or that everything was made instantaneously? I could be mistaken but thought that there was some disagreement or lack of interest on their part regarding the age of the world.
   • The biblical cross-references claim used to “prove” inerrancy really is bizarre. It’s not like any book in the Old Testament refers to the books of the New Testament or avoids referencing works that didn’t make it into the modern biblical canon (like 1 Enoch). Plus, ancient Greek writers referred to the works of their predecessors and contemporaries. Wouldn’t that show Homer, Hesiod, Plato, and co. were inspired? 🙂
   • I definitely second the whole skepticism about the “empty tomb” narrative. There was a piece by Peter Kirby (albeit somewhat dated) that went through the number of 1st Century Christian texts that never mention the empty tomb, the female witnesses, or Joseph of Arimathea. Plus, the following points would seem to cast doubt on the whole “No one would make up the women finding the tomb first” and “Women couldn’t testify in court” argument:
     • The gospels aren’t court documents and the Book of Acts (which has the disciples giving testimony in front of the Sanhedrin) doesn’t mention the discovery of the tomb by the women.
     • Other patriarchal ancient cultures have stories where women “save the day” such as the Roman story of the Sabine woman halting the fighting between Rome and their people. But these stories are usually thought to be fictitious.
     • If women were responsible for anointing bodies for burial, they would have to play some role in any empty tomb story.
     • After thinking about the relation of the resurrection accounts among the gospel writers, an idea came to mind regarding a possible intent for the author of Mark (if he created the story or was the first to put it in writing): He needed to both demonstrate that the resurrection was bodily contra other groups and explain to his contemporary readers why no one had heard the story before. So he decided to kill two (or three) birds with one stone. Relying on negative female stereotypes common in his day, he related a story where the women supposed to anoint Jesus’ body were too afraid to report what they discovered after their encounter with the angelic being/man at the tomb. (The authors of) Matthew, Luke, and John obviously had a problem with this ending, so they each added on to it to “connect” the female witnesses with the remaining disciples. (Apologies if others have already proposed something like this.)
   • As kind of an aside, I recently came across a rather unusual and somewhat disturbing appropriation of a Bible story while reading a foreign policy piece. The author alluded to the Parable of the Unjust Steward in trying to argue that the United States should not be bound to “international norms” and go for a more Machiavellian approach to foreign policy- Highly doubtful that was the original intent of the author.

   (Thanks and sorry for the long post.)

   -J Source

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