I just received a notification about a future ARAM conference that may be of interest to some scholars who read this blog: Dear Colleague, ARAM Society for Syro-Mesopotamian Studies is organizing its Twenty Ninth International Conference on the theme of Astrology in the Near East, with a special focus on the use of the Zodiac in the Syro-Mesopotamian arts, to held at the University of Oxford, 08-10 July 2010. The conference will start on Thursday 08 July at 9am, finishing... Read more

Just for clarification, the epic I posted recently on my blog should not be confused with any other epic with a similar-sounding title. It is not the Epic of Gilgamesh, which is the story of what happened to two men after they found that it was illegal for them to get married in the state of Mesopotamia. Or something like that. Nor is it the Epic of Gargamel, which explains the origins of Smurfette but not much else. Neither should... Read more

There are two recent posts that appeared on blogs I read within the past few hours, and it seemed more interesting to set them side by side under a single heading than to mention each in a separate post. First, Stephen Carlson blogs about the ending (or lack thereof) in Mark’s Gospel. On the whole his post is fair, but I’m personally not persuaded that the evidence is as evenly balanced as he suggests. (Stephen won’t be surprised by this,... Read more

The National Center for Science Education sent this announcement: Hear the distinguished historian of science Everett Mendelsohn describe “The World Before Darwin” on-line! From 8:00 to 9:30 p.m. (Eastern) on September 16, 2009, Mendelsohn will deliver the inaugural lecture of the 150th anniversary Origin of Species lecture series, hosted by The Reading Odyssey and the Darwin Facebook project — and the whole lecture will be webcast live. Sponsors of the lecture series include the National Center for Science Education, National... Read more

Having argued for his previous points about the temple and the cosmos, Walton’s “Proposition 9” is that the seven days in Genesis relate to the inauguration of the cosmic temple. It has long been hypothesized that the ancient Israelites may have had a New Year’s festival akin to other peoples in the ancient Near East, one that celebrated creation and temple, and Genesis 1 would have been an aptly suited text for use on such an occasion. Walton emphasizes that,... Read more

In the beginning, there was Jim Davila. And the blogosphere was formless and void, and NT Wrong was fishing [NOTE: some manuscripts provide a different spelling here] in the darkness. And while Jim was still contemplating what to call that which he was about to inaugurate, Mark Goodacre said “Let there be blogging”. And there was blogging. And it was mostly good. And Mark said “Let there be a division in the blogs, to separate the scholarly from the Dr.... Read more

Having established that ancient readers would have associated divine rest with a temple as the locus of that rest, Walton now moves on to the theme of the cosmos as divine temple. Readers of the New Testament and other ancient Jewish literature may already have a significant background against which to appreciate this point. In the New Testament, the letter to the Hebrews emphasizes the parallels between the earthly place of worship and the cosmic reality of which it is... Read more

James Tabor drew my attention to another endeavor to help provide people with clean water. This one is focused on Cambodia, and is called Wine To Water. It focuses on providing wells, but ones made by locals using local materials so that it can be fixed when it inevitably breaks. Embedded video from CNN Video Read more

I recently had drawn to my attention the work of a charity called “Water Is Life”, which is working to address issues of illness caused by lack of clean water through the development and distribution of a filter straw through which one can drink safely. It seems to me a clever and helpful way of addressing this issue – in many ways simpler and perhaps even less expensive than establishing centralized water purification facilities and means of distribution. Obviously the... Read more

I am incredibly proud of my wife for having dealt with a telephone call from a concerned cousin with a great deal of patience while offering wise yet direct answers (as well as questions). The phone call related to the end of the world and the “information” that the cousin in question had been getting from someone named Alex Jones. It only took a couple of peeks around the internet (adding, of course, some additional keywords like “charlatan” to make... Read more