Racing Claude

Two months ago, Salto sobrius made it onto the top-10 list of archaeology blogs on Technorati. It's currently at number 8 and rising.

The reason I bring this up now is that I've just made it past Claude Mariottini of the Northern Baptist Seminary, the current number 9. Mariottini's blog "is a Christian perspective on the Old Testament and Current Events" and covers Biblical archaeology among other things. Here's a snippet of his opinions regarding The Da Vinci Code.

Error: The book tells readers that "The New Testament is false testimony."

Rebuttal: The New Testament was sealed with the apostles' blood. They put their money where their mouths were. The Greek word for "witness" – as in the idea of witnessing to the truth about Jesus – is "martyro," from whence we get the word martyr. Why? Because so many witnesses to Jesus, e.g., the apostles, were killed for testifying about what they themselves saw. Brown glibly ignores this history and, instead, exalts the questionable writings of second-, third-, and fourth-century Gnostic Christians, who were sexual libertines for the most part. (Other Gnostics were strict legalists.)

You can see where this guy's at. Code is a crappy novel full of clichés, and you have to be severely ignorant to believe any of it is historical truth. But being a skeptic and an atheist, I find it really amusing to see a tenured academic argue (as a "rebuttal" of an "error"!) that if someone is willing to die for a piece of religious writing, then it must be historical truth. And also, that an author's sexual habits, as described posthumously by his enemies, are a good indicator of his truthfulness.

Well, Claude amigo, keep up the good work! You started blogging on 16 August last year, so you've got exactly four months' head start on me. And you're supported by an Almighty Imaginary Friend. But still my stuff seems to be more relevant to other bloggers than yours.

[More blog entries about blogging, archaeology, christianity, history, atheism; kristendom, ateism, arkeologi, historia, blogg.]