The Biblioblog Top 50 has now shifted to a biannual ranking, based on more objective criteria such as sexiness and pazang. I came in third – WOO HOO! Read more

For those who missed my live performance in New Orleans, Jim Linville offers you the next best thing… Read more

Stephen Colbert touches on the recent Vatican pronouncement on aliens: The Colbert Report Mon – Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c Gold, Frankincense and Mars – Guy Consolmagno www.colbertnation.com Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor U.S. Speedskating HT Science and Religion Today Read more

According to Jim West, the blogger formerly known as NT Wrong has decided to stop doing the Biblioblog Top 50. I don’t blame him, given the way the sheer number of biblioblogs has increased in recent months. But I do hope that something more like the original NT Wrong blog will be that blogger’s next project, as it was highly entertaining. As for those who enjoy rankings, perhaps we can start a new reality blog on which bibliobloggers dance with... Read more

I’ve wanted to join in the discussion arising from Dan Wallace’s post about the Society of Biblical Literature, the low representation of Christians (whom he defines in specific terms as those taking a conservative stance on key tenets of orthodoxy) in the guild, and scholarship. But I’ve been resisting doing so for a variety of reasons. On the one hand, I have known and continue to know individuals who have studied or are currently studying at conservative seminaries and similar... Read more

I received an e-mail from the NCSE about an event that is just a few days away: I thought that you might like to know, albeit at short notice, that Judge John E. Jones III, who presided over the Kitzmiller v. Dover case in 2005, will be speaking on judicial independence at 4:00 p.m. on December 4 at in the Whittenberger Auditorium at the Indiana Memorial Union, 900 E. Seventh St. in Bloomington. The lecture, part of the College of... Read more

HT to Phil Plait for pointing out the Hubble Space Telescope Advent Calendar for 2009, which began today at The Big Picture. Here’s a sample from last year’s calendar: Read more

A new blog came to my attention today. It is called The Religion Beat, and it is a collaborative blog project connected with the Religion in the Public Sphere project at the University of Toronto. The most recent post (of which there are only three thus far) is on “The Origins of Ray Comfort’s Darwin” and links to both my blog and Jim Linville’s. It looks like a blog worth keeping an eye on! Read more

The BioLogos blog Science and the Sacred has a wonderful post today about the “bubble” that communities of faith create to try to “protect” believers from the influence of science, Biblical scholarship, and other sources of knowledge they fear could “damage” the faith of the faithful. But as hard as the bubble can be to break through if one is within it, it seems to be even harder to pass through moving in the other direction. The “bubble” may work... Read more

All those interested in the Mandaeans will surely be grateful to the Talmud Blog for posting a summary (in English) of a presentation on the Mandaeans given recently by Matthew Morganstern. Read more