As we prepare for another episode full of the symbolism of white and black, darkness and light, here are a couple of images that may shed light on the show’s mysteries… Read more

I had seen this before, but someone recently reminded me about it, and I don’t remember if I ever shared it here… Read more

Not all composers whose music I would like to be able to share here (or listen to myself) are well represented at the internet archive. But one who is is Jean Sibelius. Here are a few of his more famous works: Violin Concerto (performed by Jascha Heifetz) http://www.archive.org/flow/flowplayer.commercial-3.0.5.swf?0.8344390731741345 Symphony No. 5 (Cleveland Orchestra, Artur Rodzinski) http://www.archive.org/flow/flowplayer.commercial-3.0.5.swf?0.37582674057121407 Finlandia (Cleveland Orchestra, Artur Rodzinski) http://www.archive.org/flow/flowplayer.commercial-3.0.5.swf?0.3093259739128915 Read more

I’ve decided to try turning on Google Ads for this site. I hope it won’t be a nuisance. It just seems like something that has become fairly standard, and which it might in fact be foolish not to switch on. Or perhaps the foolish thing is to switch it on? Does anyone have strong feelings about it as a reader of this and/or other blogs, or as a blog owner who has a positive or negative experience with the ads? One thing... Read more

The title comes from one of two posts on the DocArtz blog about religion in LOST. Fans will want to take a look: Measuring Evil: Sacred Scales and Final Judgments in “Sundown” The Candidates: A Reflection and Projection Read more

Daniel Kirk has just posted a review of my book The Only True God. Do take a look! Read more

Daniel McClellan shared a link to a web site with publications by Emanuel Tov which he has made available freely online. My first attempts to get there didn’t work. As it turns out, the site is “optimized” for Firefox, which seems to mean it won’t load with Internet Explorer. So I’ve installed Firefox. In the past I’ve encountered Firefox extensions that seemed useful, and perhaps in the near future I’ll go back to them and try some of them out.... Read more

Matthew Montinoni shared the following quote from Craig Keener’s recent book, which I thought worth passing along: Indeed, to assume from silence that Paul did not know the Jesus tradition because he does not cite it more explicitly and more often is almost analogous to assuming that the writer of 1 John was unaware of the Johannine Jesus tradition because the document presupposes rather than cites that tradition. — Craig Keener, The Historical Jesus of the Gospels (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans,... Read more

HT Polycarp Read more

A recent comment asked whether there is as much disagreement about evolution as there is about the historical Jesus. In one sense, there isn’t disagreement about the bare fact of either, except that there are more people with books, blogs, and even a couple with relevant degrees who dispute evolution. But among the vast majority of people with relevant expertise, there may be disagreement about important details in both fields (the role of viruses in lateral transmission of genetic data, for... Read more