Harrassowitz Verlag seems to be becoming the publisher of scholarly books on the Mandaeans in German. Their latest such volume takes its title from the Mandaean refrain “And Life Is Victorious!” and is a collection of studies on Mandaean and Samaritan subjects in memory of Rudolf Macuch. You can see the table of contents and a sample online, the latter being from the chapter written by Macuch’s daughter about her father. I’m looking forward to getting hold of a copy... Read more

Happy St. Patrick’s Day! For the occasion, Irenic Thoughts has pointed out that the text of Patrick’s Confession is available online. Indigenous Stranger has a version of St. Patrick’s Breastplate. 3 Quarks Daily points to a New York Times article that is relevant to some of us New Testament scholars, since it is (more or less) about why some of the best parables would also have been the hardest to remember. There’s a new book available for pre-order on Amazon:... Read more

I watched the movie TRON with my son tonight, not having seen it for many years. I was afraid he might find the graphics and special effects pretty lame, having grown up with movies that featured advanced CGI effects, but fortunately that wasn’t the case. It had dawned on me at some point in my adult years that the movie echoed a lot of religious themes, in particular with a person from the world of the creators becoming a program... Read more

Entertainment Weekly has an article on connections between LOST and Prince Caspian. Christianity Today has one about connections between LOST and Voyage of the Dawn Treader. It would be ironic if the character Charlotte S. Lewis has died just as we begin to discover the connections between LOST and the writings of the author C. S. Lewis. The EW article also notes that in the single-volume collection of the Narnia Chronicles, p.316 is the dedication page for Prince Caspian. And... Read more

A Romanian pastor, the late Rev. Mircu Cocar, apparently used to offer the following wise advice to his congregation: Read the Bible like you eat a fish. Take what’s good, and leave the bones on the plate. Read more

Today we began a new topic in my Sunday school class series “When Christians Disagree”: homosexuality. We’re beginning with those passages that have often been singled out as relevant to the issue, although in the present instance, I suggested that Genesis 19 might not be about homosexuality but rather about hospitality, rape, violence and a number of other issues. Also noted was Ezekiel 16, which condemns Sodom in particular for lack of concern for the poor. The question of what... Read more

The recent volume edited by Tom Thatcher, Jesus, the Voice, and the Text: Beyond The Oral and the Written Gospel (Waco: Baylor University Press, 2008) provides both an appreciative and critical retrospective on the contribution of Werner Kelber to our understanding of orality and the Gospels, as well as explorations of methods and perspectives both old and new on this and related topics. The first three chapters focus specifically on the work of Werner Kelber and in particular his groundbreaking... Read more

I am reminded whenever I think of the story about Jacob and Esau in Genesis 25:29-34 of a student in Romania who said that Esau sold his birthright for a bowl of tripe soup (ciorba de burta). That’s a popular delicacy, much more appealing to some tastes than “pottage” – especially when it is said to be a “mess”. John Hobbins’ recent comment about “giving up one’s birthright for a mess of unitarian pottage” got me thinking, since this image... Read more

HT Street Prophets Read more

Both the Thou Shalt blog and Dr. Claude Mariottini have mentioned a recent attempt to find “Bible codes”, this time supposedly foreseeing the current financial crisis. But of course, foreseeing is the wrong word, since no one seems to have picked up on this until after the fact. It is easy to start with current events and then “find” them in the Bible, especially if you are willing to ignore the actual words of the Bible and instead skip to... Read more