The Genius Of Jesus

Peter Williams recently published a book about the genius of Jesus. Here's an interview with Williams that's partly about that book.

The Release Date And Other Information On Gary Habermas' Multi-Volume Series On Jesus' Resurrection

Sean McDowell interviewed Gary Habermas a few days ago, and his upcoming multi-volume magnum opus on Jesus' resurrection was discussed. Here's one of the relevant segments. The first volume is due out next January, and the subsequent volumes should come out at eight-month intervals. He also described some of the contents of the first two volumes and other details.

Music And The Paranormal

Melvyn Willin, the archive liaison officer for the Society for Psychical Research, just published Music And The Paranormal: An Encyclopedic Dictionary (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, 2022). The relationship between music and the paranormal is a significant and neglected topic and one that Willin has studied in a lot of depth for a long time. I'll quote some of his comments from the preface:

Since music is arguably the most intangible of the arts and since the paranormal, in all its manifestations, continues to intrigue people, the placing of these two subjects together seems long overdue. My own career in music as both a teacher and performer was infiltrated throughout my life with anomalies that intrigued me and my fellow musicians. Nobody seemed to be able to explain why some people appeared to be able to compose music or perform beyond their normal ability which, in some cases, they attributed to the deceased. Nobody seemed to be able to explain why music was sometimes heard when there was no obvious, or even un-obvious, source of the sound. Nobody seemed to explain why a number of people heard music when they were close to death which they remembered when they were resuscitated. Nobody seemed able to explain how intrusive operations could be conducted on people without anesthetic, but by using music to eliminate the pain. Nobody seemed able to explain why autistic people often possessed phenomenal musical abilities….I decided to undertake research into these and other related musical anomalies over a period of many years which culminated in two doctorates being awarded by Sheffield University and Bristol University, both in the UK. Previous pure music degrees were awarded by London University and Surrey University and a graduate diploma from the Royal Academy of Music, London. For more than thirty years I have been a member and then council member of the Society for Psychical Research (SPR) and more recently the archive liaison officer. During this time, I have been directly involved with the archiving of the Society's manuscripts collection stored at Cambridge University Library. The audio-visual archive is held at my own premises in Essex, England….

The printed sources for my extensive research are many and varied, but I have not found a single book that has brought the multiple strands together….An earlier work of my own, Music, Witchcraft and the Paranormal (see Willin, 2005), outlined my original academic study of the material. I shall also be able to present my own case histories taken from interviewing a wide range of people and visiting sites where music has allegedly been heard from unknown sources. The end result will be a reference work that can be used to explore the academic study of music and the paranormal in a comprehensive alphabetical order as well as be of interest to the general public.

An Update On Gary Habermas' Magnum Opus On Jesus' Resurrection

Here are some comments Mike Licona recently made about the status of Habermas' upcoming (multi-volume) book.

Book and ebook

John Piper's new book Providence is available. I trust it'll be a good book and worth reading, but that's not the primary reason I'm mentioning it. The primary reason I'm posting about it is because if you order Piper's book through WTS Books, then, according to WTS Books:

Order the hardcover version and receive the eBook FREE. Download link will be emailed after purchase is completed. eBook does not need to be in cart if purchasing hardcover edition.

I think this is a good idea in general, though I could see exceptions where it might not be a good idea. At least I think it might be a promising way for some publishers and bookstores to push back against companies like Amazon, which apparently controls around 80% of the US book market (isn't that effectively a monopoly?). That is, publishers and bookstores offering both the book and the ebook bundled together in some way might be able to attract customers away from Amazon and to their bookstores as well as to give customers who have purchased their book-ebook bundle real ownership over what they've purchased. I think many customers are concerned that Amazon could just "disappear" their purchased ebooks if Amazon wanted to. This would help quell those fears or concerns.

I assume the main concern from publishers is that giving away free ebooks along with physical books (or just bundling an ebook together with a physical book and marketing the ebook as free but really charging for both) could open the door to people pirating ebooks if the ebooks have no DRM protection. I'm not sure how to fix this. Perhaps one could put in place legal requirements that Amazon (and other booksellers) must adhere to before they can remove purchased books if they don't already exist? However, even if publishers prefer DRM protection (or something like it) for their ebooks, offering a physical book + ebook would reassure customers that they own their books because they possess a physical book even if the ebook is removed.

Of course, all this assumes a lower price point for the bundle than for the ebook-book if each was purchased separately. Otherwise there'd be no advantage for people buying the book-ebook bundle.

I guess Amazon could follow suite and do the same. Unless they're broken up somehow.

Anyway I just think we should try to find new ways to have more diversity in the book market and not have to rely on near-monopolies like Amazon.

Update: Desiring God has made Piper's book free to download as a pdf.

Read Some Portions Of Lydia McGrew's Upcoming Book On John's Gospel

She's posted the first chapter and the conclusion of the book.

Inconsistencies In Some Anti-Christian Views Of The Paranormal

Bruce Greyson, one of the leading researchers of near-death experiences, recently wrote a book on the subject, which is coming out soon. You can read a story from the New York Post about it here. The book and the media coverage of it provide further reasons for Christians to be prepared to discuss paranormal issues.

Here are some relevant comments from a recent discussion I participated in:

The Harvest Handbook of Apologetics

The Harvest Handbook of Apologetics is currently on sale for $1.99 on Amazon Kindle. However, if you don't wish to support Amazon (who could remove access to your purchased ebooks if they wish), then the ebook is also available elsewhere. Such as on Christian Boook for $1.59. The book is a collection of essays on various apologetics issues from scholars like Bill Dembski, Stephen Meyer, Guillermo Gonzalez, Gary Habermas, J.W. Montgomery, Norman Geisler, Walter Kaiser, Edwin Yamauchi, etc.

By the way:

1. I don't know if it's legal or illegal in the US to remove DRM on DRM-protected ebooks if someone has purchased the ebook for their own personal use. Maybe a lawyer can comment if there are any lawyers around.

2. At the same time, even if it's illegal, there are unjust or unethical laws. Perhaps it's arguable the DMCA or certain sections of the DMCA are unjust or unethical.

3. That said, I'm not implying it's necessarily licit for Christians to break laws even if the laws are unjust or unethical laws.

John Piper On Reading, Writing, And His New Book

Kevin DeYoung recently interviewed John Piper about a lot of issues related to reading and writing, including which books have most influenced him, his experiences in writing books, and his upcoming book about providence. They discuss some pastoral issues as well.

Christians Should Believe In Ghosts

Earlier this year, Billy Hallowell published a book on demons, ghosts, and other paranormal topics. He was recently interviewed by Sean McDowell. Here's something I just posted in the comments section below the video. It's several paragraphs long, so I doubt many people will read it. But, for those who are interested, I explain why Christians should believe in ghosts, how we're often overly dependent on the demonic hypothesis, what harm that does, and what other explanatory options are available to a Christian.

"Loke: Investigating the Resurrection"

Andrew Loke has several lengthy responses to critics of his new book Investigating the Resurrection in this thread. That said, there's a mixture of things with which I'd agree and things with which I'd disagree.

Loke's book is currently free on Amazon Kindle as well as on his Academia.edu (pdf).

The Face of Miracles

William Dembski has co-authored (with Alex Thomas) an ebook titled The Face of Miracles:

The Faces of Miracles is an eBook written by Bill Dembski and Alex Thomas. It will be presented on this blog, BillDembski.com, over the next four months (November 2019 thru February 2020), with new installments typically appearing on Mondays.

You can read the Introduction now.

I don't know if I'll agree with what Dembski and Thomas have to say, but it'll likely be quite thought-provoking. Dembski is a highly intelligent and refreshingly independent thinker.

Speaking of miracles and related phenomena (e.g. NDEs), I've most appreciated what Jason Engwer, Steve Hays, Robert Larmer, and Tim McGrew have said on these topics. I don't know what Dembski has planned, but it would be good to see Dembski interact with what they've written. Jason and Steve's material is available on Triablogue, while Larmer and McGrew have published academic articles and books (e.g. The Legitimacy of Miracle, the SEP entry on miracles).

The Mirror or the Mask? interview

George Brahm interviews Lydia McGrew on her forthcoming book The Mirror or the Mask?: Liberating the Gospels from Literary Devices.

30 books everyone should read

A friend, Ken Samples (whose weblog and books I'd recommend), posted this on Facebook: "30 Books Everyone Should Read At Least Once In Their Lives".

For what it's worth, if anything, here are my comments:

I think I've read the majority of these, but I don't think they're all worth reading. For example, I admire Orwell, but I'd agree with C.S. Lewis' assessment of 1984 and Animal Farm: 1984 is much weaker than Animal Farm. Animal Farm is the far better book. Animal Farm says more with less. The exception is the "The Principles of Newspeak" appendix in 1984 which is, indeed, brilliant.

Another example is Fahrenheit 451. I think Fahrenheit 451 is one of Bradbury's weaker works, though I've read a lot of Bradbury and generally have enjoyed him for what he is. He writes beautifully. I think Bradbury's best works are his short stories, but for novels I'm somewhat surprised The Martian Chronicles didn't make the cut. Of course, The Martian Chronicles is essentially a collection of short stories.

Likewise, this may be considered sacrilege by some, but I wouldn't rank Tolkien's The Hobbit and LotR as highly as most Christians or people in general do. I think they're good stories, but not great stories that "everyone should read". I find Tolkien often laborious to read. He was a philologist by training. I'd say this is reflects both the strengths and weaknesses of The Hobbit and the LotR. I've also read The Silmarillion which I likewise enjoyed to a degree but wouldn't rate highly. Much of The Silmarillion is Tolkien's reworking of various mythologies (e.g. the fall of Gondolin paralleling the fall of Troy in Homer and Virgil). Not original fare, but it's interesting if you want to hear Tolkien's take on classic myths.

I appreciate Dickens, and I love his wordsmithery, but I think A Tale of Two Cities is like an inferior Victor Hugo. (And I don't even think that highly of Hugo. Among other issues, I think Hugo's Les Misérables is emotionally overwrought. I believe G.K. Chesterton once compared Hugo with Dickens; I'd agree with Chesterton's assessment of the two.) At the very least I think Dickens had far better novels that could have arguably made the list over Two Cities (e.g. Pickwick, Great Expectations, maybe David Copperfield).

Same with Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. Sure, I enjoyed the tale of "star-crossed lovers" in "fair Verona", but Shakespeare had superior plays, whether tragedies (e.g. Hamlet, Macbeth, Othello, King Lear) or comedies (e.g. A Midsummer Night's Dream, Much Ado About Nothing, The Tempest). Or others (e.g. histories like Henry V).

Likewise the first Harry Potter book shouldn't have made the list, I don't think. I think the best is the third one, The Prisoner of Azkaban. The first two books are still very much light-hearted romps in my view, while the deeper thematic and tonal shift that Harry Potter is best known for are well-introduced in Azkaban. Rowling's later Harry Potter books suffer from bloat. But Rowling has an inventive ear for words. Not unlike Dickens before her.

These books are generally fiction, but there's some non-fiction as well. I think it'd be better to draw separate lists for fictional and non-fictional works. For instance, The Diary of Anne Frank is valuable and worth reading, but I'd say it should be compared alongside other firsthand accounts of the Holocaust rather than compared alongside the likes of Bradbury, Orwell, Dickens, and Shakespeare (e.g. Elie Wiesel's Night, Corrie ten Boom's The Hiding Place). Or at least compared alongside other works of suffering imprisonment and death in totalitarian regimes (e.g. Solzhenitsyn).

There are a few books I've never been interested in reading. Probably because I'm a guy rather than a girl. I'm referring to books like Little Women and Gone with the Wind. Maybe that's my loss.

Just to show I'm not so calloused, I do agree with a lot of the books on the list, viz. Huckleberry Finn, Of Mice and Men, Lord of the Flies, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, Charlotte's Web, Frankenstein, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, and maybe Alice in Wonderland.

I'd note Frankenstein and H2G2 are militantly atheist books. Frankenstein is subtitled The Modern Prometheus which the Romantics saw as a defiant figure against the gods. It was also written by a young Mary Shelley who ran in the same literary circles as her husband Percy Bysshe Shelley and Lord Byron among other atheists du jour. Both her husband and Lord Byron lived somewhat ignominiously as rebels against authorities and had tragic ends to their short lives. H2G2 is a hilarious send-up of the absurdities of life from an atheistic perspective. I regard it as something of a modern Candide (Voltaire). Still I see value in reading these two atheistic works to see what the best atheist literature has to offer in terms of tragedy and comedy, respectively.

And I'd say books worth reading are worth re-reading. Not just once, but many times in one's life.

Anyway I've gone on for long enough. I'd better stop here.

The last things

An interview with Christian philosopher Paul Helm about "the last things": death, judgment, heaven, and hell.

It looks like Helm's The Last Things is currently unavailable at all the other major online bookstores I'm familiar with (e.g. Amazon), but it can still be purchased from the Banner of Truth. It's the final book in a trilogy. I've read the other two books, The Beginnings and The Callings, and I would highly recommend them too.

As many already know, Paul Helm has a weblog here.

Frankenstein

I read the novel Frankenstein years ago when I was in high school or perhaps in junior high school. I recall enjoying it. However, it's been years since then, I've certainly forgotten quite a lot, and I don't know if the story would hold up today. My caveats for this post.

The Evidence For Organized Religion Can't Be Ignored

I recently listened to Alex Tsakiris' interview with Leslie Kean, a journalist who's published some books on paranormal phenomena. The books discussed during the program (one on UFOs and one on the afterlife) seem to have a lot of good material, and I've ordered both. I expect to eventually read them, but it may be a while before I get to them. What I want to do in this post is make some comments about the interview.

Kean's book on the afterlife seems to have some overlap with Patricia Pearson's book that came out in 2014, which I reviewed here. There's also some overlap with Tsakiris' interview of Pearson. I'll refer to perspectives like those held by people such as Tsakiris, Pearson, and Kean as a paranormal view of the afterlife.

Dictionary Of Christianity And Science

I recently saw Chad Gross posting about an upcoming book that looks promising.

Reading the Word of God in the Presence of God

Free (pdf): Reading the Word of God in the Presence of God by Vern Poythress.

Also, Poythress' The Lordship of Christ: Serving Our Savior All of the Time, in All of Life, with All of Our Heart is currently $2.99 on Kindle.

Seeing Christ in all of Scripture

Westminster Seminary Press is currently offering Seeing Christ in All of Scripture: Hermeneutics at Westminster Theological Seminary (pdf) as a free download.