I’m sure that the thought has crossed my mind before, and I’m sure that books I read about the Hebrew Bible mentioned this, but having been reading lately about ancient creation stories, perhaps my mind has been processing this familiar data from a different angle lately. What struck me this morning is the absence of any account in the Hebrew Bible of the origin of the gods. Their existence is denied by some late authors (e.g. Deutero-Isaiah) and assumed by... Read more

I toyed with the idea of calling or subtitling this sabbatical retrospective “the good, the bad and the ugly”. Certainly there was some of the latter: a severe case of bronchitis early on, and an attempted break-in at my house (I was out of the house for perhaps 5 minutes, came home and found the patio door had been opened, and heard someone trying to get in. I was extremely grateful for the mop handle that prevented it from being... Read more

Just a quick movie-related post. I just recently saw the movie Crossing Over. It offers a portrait of diverse experiences by a range of (mostly illegal) immigrants in the United States. It is very thought provoking. Be warned, however, that this is probably not a movie to show to a church group in order to get a discussion on immigration going (although obviously it depends on the church). The movie features really graphic sex, violence, and foul language in English,... Read more

Tony Jones has posted on a topic that I also touched on recently, sharing some personal accounts of the difficulties faced by people who, because of their chromosomes and/or their genitalia, might be considered heterosexual according to one country’s laws and homosexual according to another’s. Read more

Chris Tilling offered a link to some really excellent, top notch New Testament scholars in videos on YouTube. But how can they compete with this video from Aaron Rathburn, presenting the beginning of the Epistle to the Hebrews in Star Wars format? Read more

I am offering a shorter review than I usually tend to of The Science Fiction Handbook by M. Keith Booker and Anne-Marie Thomas (Malden: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009), not because the book has lesser value, but on the contrary, because the book is so rich, diverse and complex that it is difficult to summarize, other than in the form of a recommendation that, if you are interested in science fiction, and in particular if you are interested in serious academic study of... Read more

I suppose I ought to tackle this question, since I get people arriving at my blog daily after doing a search for the keywords “hermaphrodite sex”. Is Genesis 1:27c wrong or merely misleading? It makes it sound like God not only initially created but ordained that human existence should be typified by two sorts of human being, “male” and “female”. If that was the divine plan, would it be fair to say that it failed? Human beings do not consistently... Read more

Having (thankfully!) never been tagged with the “Honest Scrap” meme that has been circulating, I began formulating a somewhat twisted alternative. The meme works as follows. You post five things about yourself. Four are untrue. One is true. All are so outlandish, implausible or ridiculous that no one would be inclined to believe that any of them are true. And despite the pleas from your readers, you never divulge which is true and which are fabrications. You then tag five... Read more

Someone left a link in a comment to a site that explores the complicated issue of the origin of the word syllabus and the related issue of what its plural form should be. I’ll leave that subject to be debated by the English etymologists and Latinists among you. I shouldn’t have to worry in the mean time: since one course only ever has one syllabus at a time, I shouldn’t ever need to use the plural. Read more

Congratulations to Butler University, to all my colleagues and co-workers, on being ranked #2 in the recent U.S. News and World Report rankings, in its category of Midwestern Master’s level comprehensive universities! Read more