One can understand the inclination to think of hurricanes as expressions of anger. Even the metaphors we use – furious howling winds, lashing rain, and so on – draw from such imagery. But there are problems with attempting to take this view literally, especially in light of our meteorological understanding of climate, weather, and storms, but even just in terms of the way God ends up being thought of when one views God as attacking sinners with a scattergun that… Read more
here there
September 16, 2017 By James F. McGrath 0 Comments
I had the privilege of hearing the above piece by Ingrid Stölzel at a recital given by Ascending Duo some time back. You can hear more of Stölzel’s music on her Soundcloud page. The program at that performance also included “What I Heard” by Bryce Fuhrman. Read more
#CFP : Syriac and its Users in the Early Modern World, c.1500-c.1750
September 15, 2017 By James F. McGrath 0 Comments
CALL FOR PAPERS: Syriac and its Users in the Early Modern World, c.1500-c.1750 A workshop at the University of Oxford, 15-16 March 2018* The vast majority of scholarship on Syriac has focused on Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages. Yet Syriac continued to be used, as a liturgical, literary and living language, across the early modern period and beyond. Guides to Syriac literature sometimes give the impression that new textual production had effectively ceased by 1500. But new texts did… Read more
Dots, Marginalia and Peritexts in Middle Eastern Manuscripts Workshop
September 14, 2017 By James F. McGrath 0 Comments
Dots, Marginalia and Peritexts in Middle Eastern Manuscripts Workshop Venue Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton Date June 11–12, 2018 Conveners Sabine Schmidtke and George A. Kiraz (Institute for Advanced Study) Manuscripts often contain far more material than the words that form their primary texts: dots and various other symbols that mark vowels (in the case of Semitic languages), intonation, readings aids, and other textual markers; marginal notes and sigla and interlinear annotations that provide additional explanatory content akin to but… Read more
Doctor Who: The Pirate Planet
September 13, 2017 By James F. McGrath 1 Comment
The Pirate Planet is not an episode that only die hard Doctor Who fans should watch. Written by Douglas Adams, this second episode in the Key to Time sequence is full of the humor one would expect if one is familiar with his other writing. It features not only the robot dog that you have already come to know and love, but also a robot parrot, and robotic dog and parrot facing off against one another. But it also has the quite… Read more
Lucian of Samosata’s Science Fiction
September 12, 2017 By James F. McGrath 1 Comment
I have been meaning to blog about Lucian of Samosata since Lorraine Boissoneault wrote an article about him for Smithsonian magazine towards the end of last year. It discusses the question of whether Lucian’s work fits the genre of science fiction, discussing other contenders for the “first work of science fiction” such as the Epic of Gilgamesh, Johannes Kepler’s novel Somnium, and Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. There is also a very good article about Lucian in ARAMCO World. It highlights his identity as a native speaker of Syriac,… Read more
Opening for Scholarly Communications Librarian at Butler University
September 11, 2017 By James F. McGrath 0 Comments
One of the many job openings listed on the Butler website at the moment: Scholarly Communication Librarian Position Overview Butler University Libraries invite applications for a Scholarly Communication Librarian, a 12-month, non-tenured (continuing appointment) position with the rank of assistant professor, reporting to the Associate Dean for Collections and Digital Services. The Scholarly Communication Librarian position provides leadership for scholarly communication and digital scholarship initiatives at Butler University Libraries. Scholarly communication is a strategic priority for Butler Libraries and this… Read more
Community Baptist Church
September 10, 2017 By James F. McGrath 25 Comments
I don’t see the problem, necessarily. It is true that few Baptist churches – and perhaps no Baptist churches in our time – are “Communist Churches.” But the meme seems to assume that they could not be, as though there were inherently something unthinkable about the idea. And while that may be true of Marxist/Leninist Communism, which had a distinctly anti-religious bent to it, the Communist Manifesto itself mentions other already-existing forms of communism, among with are Christian varieties. What… Read more
Terrible Review of What Sounds Like a Terrible Book
September 9, 2017 By James F. McGrath 50 Comments
The quotations in the image below, which is embedded in the review of David Fitzgerald’s latest (three-volume!) book of half-baked and poorly-argued nonsense that appeared on the blog Debunking Christianity, is supposed to boil down what is positive about his books to their essence. But in fact it illustrates his inability to recognize when he doesn’t have a valid point and/or is not making a logical, reasoned argument. Here is the image: Let’s consider each of the two points above. First,… Read more
Illicit Antiquities Educational Games?
September 8, 2017 By James F. McGrath 2 Comments
The illegal smuggling of antiquities has been in the news a lot lately (although it has never been entirely absent in living memory, alas). I wonder whether there are games that could be used to teach about this topic in a manner that is fun, and yet does not reward players for doing things that are illegal and/or immoral – or, if it does, at least brings the ethical issues into the player’s conscious awareness in the process. Thebes is one that looks particularly… Read more
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