HT to The Fire and the Rose for mentioning this call for papers for a conference specifically for doctoral students, to be held at Princeton Theological Seminary. The topic is religion and popular culture – and one of the many specific topics mentioned as possible subjects for papers is LOST. Click the poster below to see all the details. Read more

Earl Doherty and some other mythicists try to argue that Paul thought that the story of Christ, whatever that story may have involved, was set in a mythical heavenly realm – typically, a realm viewed as having been “in the realm of flesh” and yet “above the firmament.” Such claims apparently seem not merely plausible but persuasive to some – but certainly not to those who have actually read the New Testament extensively, rather than atomistically looking for prooftexts to support for a... Read more

A characteristic feature of mythicism is to make much of the fact that Paul’s letters do not provide a narrative description of the life of Jesus nor much in the way of teaching of Jesus explicitly attributed to him. As one commenter noted in the past, however, the relative lack of information is every bit as much a problem for mythicism, if not more so. Specific details about the supposed Christ-myth, his conflict with celestial forces and/or whatever else made... Read more

Bill Caraher of The Archaeology of the Mediterranean World posted “More on Academic Blogging.” Inside Higher Ed discusses the “Long Road to Open Access” My colleague Brad Matthies has a new blog called The Digital Immigrant looking at issues related to the intersection of libraries, publications and new technologies. James Tucker shows what his desktop looks like when he’s blogging. Read more

For those who couldn’t make it, here’s a clip from the Metropolitan Youth Orchestra play-a-thon which took place today at the McDonalds in Broad Ripple. In view of the background noise, I think that next time we may choose something other than a Berceuse (i.e. a lullaby) when performing in such a venue. But the Super Mario Bros. and Irish fiddle tunes seem to have been good choices. Read more

I have a student who is very interested in the development of the idea of the heavenly court, as reflected in the Book of Job and elsewhere. If anyone has suggestions on articles and books that give a good sense of the state of the scholarly understanding of this subject, I (and the student) would be extremely grateful. Thanks! Read more

I just tried out the new feature on Academia.edu which allows you to ask questions and engage in discussion on a variety of academic topic. I posed the same question as in the recent post about translating a technical term in the Mandaean Book of John. I’ll be interested to see whether and to what extent Academia.edu becomes a focus of discussion akin to what sometimes occurs at present on academic blogs. Read more

The religion program at Butler University has been on Facebook for quite some time. Now we’re on Twitter too! new TWTR.Widget({ version: 2, type: ‘profile’, rpp: 4, interval: 6000, width: 250, height: 300, theme: { shell: { background: ‘#333333’, color: ‘#ffffff’ }, tweets: { background: ‘#000000’, color: ‘#ffffff’, links: ‘#4aed05’ } }, features: { scrollbar: false, loop: false, live: false, hashtags: true, timestamp: true, avatars: false, behavior: ‘all’ }}).render().setUser(‘ButlerReligion’).start(); Read more

April DeConick has posted some thoughts on the relationship between memory and history on her blog, The Forbidden Gospels. Read more

Thanks to Jim Davila for pointing out that the Mandaeans were mentioned in an article in today’s Boston Globe. Read more