According to reports, health inspectors today shut down the restaurant at an unspecified creation museum. The creationism-themed restaurant had previously been given a warning when the restaurant’s “Crocoduck Burgers” were tested and found not to contain meat from any known animal. Today’s closure drew attention to the restaurant’s practice of serving foods on which e. coli bacteria had been not merely allowed but caused to grow to dangerous levels. The restaurant’s manager, who may face criminal charges, said that this practice was aimed... Read more

It is good that April 1st has fallen during holy week this year. Many people are unaware that the celebration of April Fool’s Day was orginally an integral part of the Christian calendar, always falling in between Palm Sunday and Good Frday. But debates about and modifications to the date of Easter have broken the connection, leading to much misunderstanding. April Fool’s Day originally commemorated the occasion when, approximately 1,980 years ago, Jesus described the end of the world and... Read more

Jim West has posted the latest Biblical Studies Carnival. But in addition to this funny, flea-ridden carnival, here are some amusing items from around the blogosphere. Clayboy shared an instance of linguistic confusion. Kouya Chronicle linked to it and a couple of others.Loren Rosson reviewed Biblical Cranks.Phil Harland linked to The Lost Tweets of JesusThe Evangelical Textual Criticism blog has been subjected to textual criticism.The Lead reports on Barbie’s ordination to the priesthood.Peter Kirk highlights the new Google animal translate feature.The... Read more

Bob Macdonald shared a link to this pdf of a Facebook Passion. It is hilarious, and definitely worth reading, especially for scholars and students of the New Testament (who will nit pick about some details but are almost guaranteed nevertheless to find themselves amused and entertained)! Read more

http://www.collegehumor.com/moogaloop/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=1931187&fullscreen=1 See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor. HT IO9 Read more

Via the Society of Biblical Literature newsletter I learned of this musical composition competition: If you know a young composer who would like to submit and possibly win a prize for a musical composition using the King James Version of the Bible go to this site: The 2011 Trust. The 2011 Trust is promoting the 400th Anniversary of the King James Bible. Please share this information with the music department in your institution. Read more

Through an advertising e-mail from Dove Booksellers, I learned about a series of commentaries on the works of Philo published by E. J. Brill and the Society of Biblical Literature. They are expensive as hardcovers but also available as relatively inexpensive paperbacks. Here is a sample of one volume via Google Books: Read more

I began this episode feeling just a little like Sayid: nothing, no anger, no sorrow, losing emotional attachment to this show that I and so many of you have followed for years. Just a handful of episodes before it all ends – could there be anything else I could learn about the characters? Any more stories to tell, that would be as enjoyable as what we’ve already seen, much less that can bring what we’ve watched for a number of years to... Read more

A seasonally-appropriate video at the intersection of religion and sci-fi. And a happy Passover to all who celebrate it – human or not!HT Thoughts In A Haystack Read more

I’ve seen quite a few bloggers place “Christian” in quotation marks when referring to the “Christian Militia” group Hutaree which has been making headlines recently. There is a Hutaree web site here. I do hope that people will be consistent in how they refer to groups such as Christian militias and Islamic terrorists. We can either acknowledge that these are groups that understand themselves, rightly or wrongly, to be Christian or Muslim, and refer to them as such. Or we can recognize the tension between... Read more