I have been too busy to blog about the last episode of The Event, but I had to say at least this: any show that can inspire someone to coin the phrase “Winnebago ex machina” (even if it isn’t a compliment) must be doing something right. Read more

The Gospel of Mark, when not read through the lens of later Gospels, suggests that Jesus was not given an honorable burial: Jesus is buried in accordance with the Law and placed in “a tomb,” without anointing or other niceties that were the norm when someone was buried honorably by their family. The use of a linen shroud may suggest that it was possible to be buried even more dishonorably – but not much (Nahum ben Yehuda has a collection of rabbinic... Read more

By Ben Sargent, HT John Pieret Read more

The Onion has the scoop, although it turns out that it wasn’t (just) the New Testament that was invented. Read more

Those who focus on the doom and devastation in Revelation are prone to completely overlook the remarkable amount of singing in the book. Here’s a famous piece that uses words sung in the chapter we’re up to today in my class on Revelation: http://www.archive.org/flow/flowplayer.commercial-3.2.1.swf All the singing is a pointer to a major theme of the book, namely contrasting the heavenly worship of God and the Lamb with the earthly worship of the beast (i.e. emperor worship). Christian identity in... Read more

Bob Cornwall has a review of James D. G. Dunn’s book, Did the First Christians Worship Jesus? over at his blog Ponderings on a Faith Journey. Read more

Before someone corrects the disaccord between number and verb in the title of this post, I should clarify that I’m not saying that “the human faces of God are available” but rather than Thom Stark’s book, The Human Faces of God, is available from the publisher, Wipf and Stock. Thom’s book tackles Christian fundamentalism not only in terms of analysing the truthfulness of its claims, but also by pointing out its internal inconsistency in failing to adhere to what it claims... Read more

I’ve posted an entry on the Mandaean Book of John translation project blog about a translation question. I hope that all readers – and particularly those interested in Aramaic, Gnosticism, translation, and the like – will pay a visit and help get some discussion started on the topic of how best to translate an important Mandaean technical term. Read more

Jonathan Robinson of the blog ξἐνος  has posted that he’ll be hosting this month’s Biblical studies carnival. And so as you read or write things that you think should be included, you can send them to him! Read more

Thanks to Tim Henderson for pointing out that Larry Hurtado has a new book out, God in New Testament Theology (Library of Biblical Theology). It is published by Abingdon Press. Read more