Again, as with my quarterly posts, not all of these were from 2025, but they were the 10 most read in 2025.
I'll note "evergreen" posts by when they were first written.
No. 10? From last spring, I offered up "ethical and pontifical thoughts on the death of Pope Francis."
No. 9? From 2023, based on the work of up and coming Tanakh scholar Idan Dershowitz, namely an advance monograph proposing a proto-Deuteronomy, and that this was what Moses Wilhelm Shapira found, and religion researcher friend Paul Davidson speculating on who Josiah really was, I stood traditional ideas of both Josiah and Deuteronomy on their heads.
No. 8? Way back in 2012, I laughed at a paleogeologist who claimed he had proven via geology that Jesus was crucified on April 3, 33 CE.
No. 7? Even older, but it continues to trend because I continue to share it. "Paul, Passover, Jesus, Gnosticism" ties those four items together in a bow, starting with biblical criticism of the "Words of Institution" of the Eucharist in I Corinthians 15.
No. 6? From 2020, "A Lutheran College Myth Bites the Dust." (The college in question was my undergraduate alma mater.)
No. 5? The oldest yet, from 2005. "Genesis 6 Retold" engages in a skeptical poetic retelling of the story of the Nephilim, Ham's would-be castration of Noah (yes) and more.
No. 4? From 2023, yes, there is fascism of a sort, punningly labeled by others as "Lutefash," in the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, the largest denomination in the conservative wing of Lutheranism and my childhood religious alma mater. Although Matthew Harrison, the then and now president of the denomination, pruned the visibly worst flowers, he deliberately left the roots untouched, and since Trump's re-election and definitely since the killing of Charlie Kirk, has fertilized the soil for some version of this to arise again. Here's my take. (Rachel Good, killed by ICE in Minneapolis, was reportedly a member of an LCMS church, and at least semi-active. Yes, even with a lesbian wife.)
No. 3? "The great ahistoricity of Acts and radical thoughts on Paul's demise" is from 2022. The "great" ahistoricity, beyond Acts' relative ahistoricity in general, picks up steam with Acts 21, when Paul allegedly hauled a goy into inner courts of the Jerusalem temple. I thoroughly deconstruct that and everything that follows, while at the same time wondering if maybe he DID haul Trophimus or some other Gentile into the temple inner courts.
No. 2? "Ezra, Meet Snopes" also goes back to 2005. It offers brief overview-level speculation on how Ezra might have edited the Torah together.
No. 1? From 2007, "More proof the Buddha was no Buddha" is one of my top posts all time on the site, and a direct rebuke to Robert Wright, and even more to those who think even less critically about Buddhism than him.
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