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On Jesus as a political figure

"[In one story,] Jesus walks into the temple, and he begins to cleanse it. He turns over the tables of the money-changers, who are exchanging the foul foreign currency of the Roman Empire with the Hebrew shekel, which was the only currency that the temple would accept. And then, of course, in a loud, booming voice, he says, 'It is written that my house shall be a house of prayer for all nations, and you have made it a den of thieves.'

"Now, as all historians recognize, this was the action that precipitated his arrest, his torture and his execution by the state. And there's a very simple reason for that: The temple was not just the center of the Jewish cult; it was, in many ways, the representation of the power and the presence of the Roman Empire."

On using The Bible as a source

"I see the scriptures of the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament very much the same way that I see the scriptures of the Quran or the Gathas or the Vedas or what have you. I think that these scriptures are inspired by individuals who, in a moment of metaphysical contact with the divine spirit, have been able to communicate something about God to us.

"But I also recognize as a historian that this is sacred history. ... They are valuable in the sense that they reveal certain truths to us, but that the facts that they reveal are not as valuable as the truths are."

On Jesus as the Messiah

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A recent spike in mortgage rates has created a new predicament for potential homebuyers: Forge ahead and try to lock in now? Or hold off?

Dhruv Gupta was quoted a 3.5 percent rate in May while searching for a place to buy in the San Francisco area. Less than two months later, he's looking at 5.2 percent for the same loan. But this trend has not deterred Gupta.

"It's a fact of life," he says. "I mean I can't control them, so what do you do?"

Over the weekend, Gupta bit the bullet and put a down payment on a two-bedroom condo in Oakland. It's so hard to find anything available and in his price range, he says, so he just went for it. He hopes rates will decline again, and that he'll be able to refinance. But for now, Gupta doesn't know how he feels about his decision.

"I'm more anxious than excited because of the commitment," he says.

Downstate in Temecula, Juan Johnson has had the opposite reaction to the market. "I learned that the interest rates had changed significantly enough where it made me reconsider my offer," he says.

He was in the process of making an offer on a house when his loan officer told him rates had suddenly jumped half a percentage point from the last quote he'd received.

"I was shocked," Johnson says. "You know, I said, 'You've got to be kidding me right?' And he said, 'Nope ... and they're supposed to continue to rise.' "

It was challenging enough trying to find a home his family likes, Johnson says, much less compete against investors making cash offers. Now, he's battling interest rates too.

"Bummed would be a, uh, a kind way to put it," Johnson says.

So, while Gupta jumped in, Johnson held back. Those differing reactions are reflected in the data as well. On one hand, the Mortgage Bankers Association says purchase applications rose 7 percent between early May and last week. But, according to the real estate website Redfin, the number of clients making offers declined more than 10 percent from May to June. Fewer people are requesting home tours, as well.

Market experts have long said rates would eventually rise, from their unprecedented 3 1/2 percent levels. But what touched off the jump was speculation the Federal Reserve would begin unwinding the stimulus programs that had been depressing rates.

Then, on June 19, Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke put a specific time frame on it, saying the central bank would wind down one of its bond-buying programs by the middle of next year if the economy continued showing signs of strength. Investors reacted as if Bernanke had sounded a siren.

"Almost as soon as the words left his mouth during that press conference, you had a big run-up in rates," says Michael Fratantoni, vice president of research for the Mortgage Banks Association.

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If you think flight delays in the U.S. are bad, try China.

A new report from travel industry monitor FlightStats says China is the world's worst when it comes to delays at major airports.

FlightStats compiled statistics from June for the report, determining that eight of the world's worst airports for flight delays were in China. Beijing and Shanghai topped the list, although New York's LaGuardia had the highest number of flight cancellations.

The BBC quotes China Daily as saying some industry experts blame China's high volume of air traffic as the cause of the high number of delays.

The report looked at "on-time performance of scheduled passenger flights" as well as "top performing airports based on their reported departure performance." FlightStats said a flight arriving or departing within 15 minutes of its scheduled time was considered "on time."

In North America, Honolulu ranked No. 1 for on-time departures, with 86 percent of its flights taking off as scheduled, while Vancouver's airport ranked a close second.

I hope we've heard the last of people saying, "This would never be a scandal in Europe." They usually mean "sex scandal," and by now I think Americans are entitled to boast that we've become as blase about politicians with their pants down — or, in the case of Anthony Weiner, pec-flexing with his shirt off — as Europeans like to think they are.

Mr. Weiner is now running for mayor of New York. This week Eliot Spitzer, the former governor who resigned following a scandal, announced that he'll run for New York City comptroller.

One of his opponents on the ballot, by the way, is the madam of the "escort service" of which the governor was once a customer. I'll bet Martha Raddatz and Jim Lehrer would arm-wrestle to moderate that candidates' debate!

In recent years a whole string of briefly-disgraced politicians of both parties have run and won following the kind of scandals that were once presumed to leave an American politician so shattered they'd have to become lobbyists.

When the story of President Clinton's involvement with a White House intern broke in the 1990s, I had a sandwich someplace one night — some people might call it a bar — and heard a happy cacophony of accents, gossiping.

They were British, French, and Italian reporters chirruping, "You Americans are such Puritans. This would never be a story in our country," after which I wanted to ask, "Then what brought you all the way over here?"

President Clinton was acquitted at his impeachment trial; he still soars near the top of those Most Admired Person in America polls.

But we may not be blase in the European manner. A lot of the American politicians who have run for office following sex scandals say that enduring such public disgrace has deepened their character. As Mr. Spitzer told the Morning Joe show this week, "You go through that pain, you change."

So Silvio Berlusconi, Italy's former prime minister, is unapologetic about what are called his "bunga-bunga" parties. But American politicians stray and say that it builds character.

If any group is entitled to complain that they've been maligned by the press blaring about such scandals, it's not politicians. It's Puritans.

This week Edmund S. Morgan, the distinguished historian of early America, died at the age of 97. In The Puritan Dilemma and other books, Mr. Morgan, in the words of the Washington Post, "showed that the Puritans had a healthy interest in sex, despite their reputation for dour rectitude."

I guess you don't become Founding Fathers by "dour rectitude" alone. It turns out that not even the Puritans were such Puritans.