2010-06-18T17:32:00-04:00

“There is a young man, different from other young men. Ancient prophecies foretell his coming, and he performs miraculous feats. Eventually, confronted by his enemies, he must sacrifice his own life—an act that saves mankind from calamity—but in a mystery as great as that of his origin, he is reborn, to preside in glory over a world redeemed. Tell this story to one of the world’s 2 billion Christians, and he’ll recognize it instantly. Tell it to a science-fiction and... Read more

2010-06-18T13:22:00-04:00

I’ve set up a blog dedicated to the Mandaean Book of John translation project. I will obviously blog about the project often here at Exploring Our Matrix. But the separate blog will have contributions from the others involved in the project as well. It has been set up especially to allow project collaborators to interact with one another as well as share items of interest with a wider audience. And so if you find the Mandaeans fascinating, you’ll want to... Read more

2010-06-18T11:46:00-04:00

Butler University issued a press release about the project today, which has already been picked up by Inside Indiana Business (and which Jim Davila somehow managed to spot before I did). Here’s the text of the press release: Butler Religion Professor Awarded Federal Funding Butler University Associate Professor of Religion James McGrath has been awarded a $130,000 National Endowment for the Humanities grant for a project to translate the Mandaean Book of John from Mandaic into English. The Mandaeans are a... Read more

2010-06-18T11:03:00-04:00

I’m in the process of weaning myself off of Internet Explorer. I will be trying a number of other browsers and comparing them. I’ve started with Chrome, which on the whole has seemed much better, although since I installed the Flash plug-in I’ve begun to see some of the same sluggishness I had with IE, even if not quite to the same extent. I think maybe I’m beginning to see why Steve Jobs doesn’t want to accommodate it. Be that... Read more

2010-06-18T10:55:00-04:00

Otagosh has a post on spiritual bullying that is worth reading. What particularly struck me is that what he describes is simply widespread human behavior, and something that is also found among other primates: a hierarchy or pecking order, competition for acquisition and retention of status and power, and so on. And yet the irony is that I have seen these dynamics most obviously on display in churches which emphasize that they “are not of the world,” and include significant... Read more

2010-06-17T21:48:00-04:00

The latest installment of the Doctor Who Media Club has appeared at Religion Dispatches, with contributions by Gabriel McKee and myself. Read more

2010-06-17T18:08:00-04:00

Via the DocArtz blog: An international conference on LOST, co-convened by David Lavery (Middle Tennessee State University) and Lynnette Porter (Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University), will be held in Hawaii, January 12-15th, 2011. LOST: The Conference will take place conjointly with The Hawaiian International Conference on the Arts & Humanities. The Call for Papers: Do you want to present an academic paper at the Lost Conference? The deadline for presentation proposals is July 1. See link below for the proposal form and... Read more

2010-06-17T01:21:00-04:00

James D. G. Dunn, Did the First Christians Worship Jesus?: The New Testament Evidence (SPCK/Westminster John Knox, 2010) I probably should preface this post with a disclaimer that this should not be thought of as your typical review. I studied for my PhD under Jimmy Dunn. He is my Doktorvater, mentor and friend. I also didn’t receive this book from the publisher – in fact, it is still not available in the United States, and I ordered my copy from the UK... Read more

2010-06-16T23:03:00-04:00

Star Wars told a story which began part way through, with the action already underway, and then went back and told the earlier part of the story. In a much more complex way, LOST did something similar. It wasn’t quite Memento, but it certainly filled in successively earlier parts of the story in something not entirely unlike reverse order. I think that a good test of LOST’s success in telling a coherent story is whether a newcomer to the show... Read more

2010-06-16T22:54:00-04:00

Experimental Theology and CNN have both had articles about Lady Gaga’s use of religious imagery in a recent music video. Many are finding it offensive, and many more acknowledge it is provocative and controversial. In my own opinion, this is hardly surprising, given her earlier song – you know, the one that rudely called the Pope by the nickname “Papa Ratzi”? At least, I think that’s what she said… Read more

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