Steve Wiggins posted an entry on his blog entitled “Pulp Bible” which looks at the fact that so many people think themselves experts on the Bible, without ever having done more than read parts of it (and in some cases perhaps not even that). The post also contains a useful reflection on Ezekiel 25:17 as “quoted” in Pulp Fiction. Read more

The blog Undeception has posted response to my recent blog post about LOST, the Bible and harmonization. The title is “LOST techniques of Biblical criticism.“ Read more

that Religion Dispatches has posted the latest in the Doctor Who Media Club series, with contributions by myself, Gabriel McKee and Henry Jenkins.Gabriel McKee mentioned on his own blog Also on Gabriel’s blog is a discussion of the novel The Light of Other Days by Arthur C. Clarke and Stephen Baxter. The novel (which I have not read) is apparently about using wormhole technology to see other times in history, and it touches on religion in places (since you can... Read more

Thanks to John Anderson for pointing out that the SBL annual meeting program has now been made available online. The two papers I’ll be reading are: The Blogging Revolution: New Technologies and their Impact on How we do Scholarship Not that long ago, in an academic galaxy not that far away, scholars steeped in traditional models, paradigms and technologies marveled that young academics would “fritter and waste the hours in an offhand way” by engaging in that rather frivolous activity referred... Read more

This is from the latest New Yorker: Although I think LOST did an amazing job considering the complexity of what its writers and producers tried to accomplish, perhaps, as they themselves advised us, it is time to let go. I’m going to post what I think is an “unsolvable LOST problem” for fans to try to make sense of. If you can’t, it may mean that you will have to admit that…LOST was not inerrant! Here is the plot issue:... Read more

One of my favorite birds is back in our vicinity: the Eastern Wood-Pewee. I’ve seen them from time to time, but hear them far more often. Its distinctive song (from which its name derives) is entertaining. If you’ve never heard it (or aren’t sure if you have), have a listen! Read more

A friend forwarded me a list some creative new words created by modifying existing words and coming up with a new definition. Some of my favorites included: Sarchasm: The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the person who doesn’t get it. Inoculatte: To take coffee intravenously when you are running late. Beelzebug (n.): Satan in the form of a mosquito, that gets into your bedroom at three in the morning and cannot be cast out. And there is... Read more

IO9 has a religion and science fiction piece worth sharing, on living like a Vulcan. Actually, you could have many of the debates people sometimes do about real-life traditions, now that I think about it. Is being Vulcan a matter of religion or ethnicity? Is it a religion, or a philosophy? The painting seemed reminiscent of paintings of Jesus, and so I thought I’d share it. And then of course my mind turned to Spock’s Beard,a progressive rock band which itself has... Read more

I don’t need any excuse to share Eric Whitacre’s music, but when he sets Hebrew lyrics to music, it seems especially appropriate to mention here. Here is a version of his Five Hebrew Love Songs for solo vocalist with violin and piano: And here is the more familiar choral arrangement: You can also find the composer and his wife Hila Plitmann, who is the lyricist, talking about these pieces online on Whitacre’s blog, and even the lyrics handwritten in Hebrew... Read more

It seems that I lean more towards a religious-scientific materialism than Keith Ward does, and am willing to view consciousness as an emergent property. Be that as it may, this is still a stimulating and at times humorous lecture by Ward. I’m posting it to encourage discussion, and would be very interested to hear why you find his arguments persuasive or unpersuasive. Read more