WEIT and JI Indexes

Now that I've finished both Why Evolution is True and Jesus, Interrupted, I thought it might be useful to create indexes for the two of them.

I'll start with WEIT. I was surprised to see that nearly half of my coverage came from the intro and first two chapters of the book. It seems that early on I was in the habit of making shorter, more in-depth posts about individual subjects. However, since the latter chapters were less about the evidence for evolution and more about its workings, I sped through them at a rate of a chapter per post.

• Intelligent Design Is Creationism: Wedge document & "cdesign proponentsists"
• The Tree of Life: Nested hierarchies of organisms confirm evolution
• Continental Drift: Plate tectonics makes accurate predictions, but YEC is a mess
• Radiometric Dating Works: Isochron dating and coral growth rings confirm it
• Tetrapod and Bird Evolution: Tiktaalik, Archaeopteryx and the origins of flight
• Cetacean Evolution: Indohyus, Ambulocetus, Rodhocetus and more
• The Big Picture: Geologic column's overall fossil pattern & YEC's inadequacies
• Human Vestigiality & Atavisms: Appendix, goosebumps, ear muscles & tails
• Other Vestigiality & Atavisms: Whale legs, chicken teeth, inactivated genes, etc.
• The Layout of Life: How geographical distributions of life & fossils support evo.
• Island Evolution: Studying patterns of life on continental vs. oceanic islands
• A Force to Be Reckoned With: Predictions & examples of natural selection
• The Peacock's Tail: The role of sex and sexual selection in evolution
• What Makes a Species: The process, fulfilled predictions & observed speciation
• The Naked Ape: Fossil evidence for human evolution & creationist confusion
• The Meaning of Life: Evolution neither sanctions evil nor robs us of purpose

My coverage of JI began with a focus on specific contradictions in the Bible, which is what I was expecting from the book given its subtitle. Later on, though, Ehrman began to focus more on forgeries and general disagreements in tone, as well as the fierce competition within the early church.

• What Christians Don't Know and Why: Two reasons they don't notice Bible errors
• On What Day Was Jesus Crucified?: Was it Passover or the Day of Preparation?
• What was Mary & Joseph's Hometown?: Was it Bethlehem or Nazareth?
• The Gospel of Nobody: Apologists create stories none of the gospels agree with
• John Versus the Synoptics: Differences in content, emphasis and teachings
• Paul and the Ignorance of Idolators: Did God excuse some unbelief in the past?
• Introduction to Forgeries: Who really wrote the gospels & the motives of forgers
• Forged in the Name of Paul: How we know Ephesians, Titus & others are fakes
• Our Sources for Jesus: Why they're bad, and 4 ways we make the best of them
• Failed Prophets and Historical Methods: What we can & can't know about Jesus
• Out of Chaos, Canon: The NT came from power struggles among biased men
• How Christianity Evolved (1/2): Origins of anti-Semitism & the Messianic Jesus
• How Christianity Evolved (2/2): Origins of the Trinity, afterlife & Jesus' divinity
• Reconstructing Faith: Can Christianity survive the Bible's errors and forgeries?

I learned a lot from both of these books. Alternating between them was an interesting experience as well. While it did take me a bit longer to get back into the mindset of one book after having previously covered the other, it was also nice to have a continuous change of pace, a balance between science and history.

I also already have my next two books lined up: Sam Harris' Letter to a Christian Nation and Carl Sagan's The Demon-Haunted World. The former is very short and easy read, so I'll finish that before starting on the latter.