Some of the more colorful and interesting artifacts in the Getty museum fall under the category of grave art.  First of all we have here three sarcophagus top paintings of the persons interred, of course looking much better than they did under the lid.   This type of art was found in Egypt during the Roman period, and the bearded man’s portrait was found on a sarcophagus in Er-Rubyat  (A.D. 140-60). The second portrait is of a youth with a Horus… Read more

Certainly some of the most spectacular of the things to be seen in the Getty museum are the statues.   The most famous piece in the entire Getty collection is the so-called Landsdowne Herakles seen to the right, which unlike many objects in this collection actually has a provenance. It comes ultimately from Tivoli, and dates to about 125 A.D. or so.  It typically depicts Herakles in the process of undertaking some of his herculean labors that the gods insisted he… Read more

We have been muggling along for thirteen plus years now with the Harry Potter saga.  It’s been an interesting and sometimes wild ride into the imagination of the good Ms. Rowling.  Ms. Rowling readily admits her influences, most obviously  Tolkien and Lewis, and says she is also a professing Christian.  It is thus not surprising that in this final episode of the Potter saga, a ‘resurrection stone’ plays a key role in the revival and final triumph of Harry Potter… Read more

At the outset of Chapter 6, John Dickson refers to a historical research project done at Macquarrie University in Sydney to discern whence the fondness of Western culture for the virtue known as humility, in light of the fact that it was not seen as a virtue in the Greco-Roman world.  The conclusion is— this reflects the impact of the Judaeo-Christian worldview on Europe. Dickson wants to make the case however that the humility revolution really begins in the main… Read more

Sometimes a museum is as impressive as the contents of the museum, and such is the case with the Getty Villa Museum, the dream child of oil man J. Paul Getty, though he never lived to see it built (the art and artifacts were previously housed in the Getty home itself).   This museum is built on the plan of a very large Roman villa from the NT period or thereafter.  As such, it is worth seeing all by itself. It… Read more

THE INNOCENCE PROJECT Anyone who has read John Grisham’s fine non-fiction book entitled,  An Innocent Man will have run into something called  ‘The Innocence Project’.    What is the Innocence Project?  It is the efforts of a group of lawyers and others to rectify the all too numerous mistakes made by our criminal justice system, especially before the era of DNA evidence.   The website to learn more about this righteous effort and the people involved in it is—-http://www.innocenceproject.org.      Tonight on the… Read more

In  a move that reflects the sign of the times (and the digitizing of all things in print)  my friends at Abingdon have now sent me the following press release. See what you think. —— NEWS RELEASE FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: Diane Morrow dmorrow@tbbmedia.com or 800.927.1517 Complete Common English Bible Released Digitally Before Print NASHVILLE, TN (June 15, 2011) – In a nod to the revolutionary changes occurring in publishing, the new complete Common English Bible (@CommonEngBible – http://twitter.com/CommonEngBible) is… Read more

So I go to Pepperdine for the Christian scholars conference and I run into this other alumnus from my period at Carolina—- Francis Collins.  I’m sure you’ve heard of him.  Turns out he became a Christian while he was there, and in fact so did I.  So picture us singing the UNC fight song at the science and faith conference.   Anyway,  he presented an awesome powerpoint lecture on genetic research and its ability to help us cure diseases, and he… Read more

One of the main reasons to read a whole series of novels by a good writer is to watch how not only the characters develop, but also how the author ups his game.   By my count, The Demon Archer is the 11th in the series of Hugh Corbett medieval murder mysteries, and we see the author in full stride here, his powers of description keen.   Most all of Doherty’s novels have some sort of historical core or kernel to… Read more

One of the questions I get most frequently, in many forms is— “When are you going to do another lecture tour to the Lands of the Bible?’  And now I can tell you,  it will be next May.  Below you will find the itinerary and cost and some explanation.  To that explanation I will add that if things get too ‘warm’ in the political sense in Egypt (Jordan and Israel are fine) then we will do Turkey instead.   Please note… Read more