Today is Blog Action Day 2008, and this year’s theme is poverty, so I thought it would be interesting to blog about “Biblical economics”. There is a long history of appealing to the Bible to justify economic practices, such as the notion that the commandment not to steal places a divine stamp of approval on the notion of private/personal property. And of course, were it not for such arguments, the alliance between conservative Christianity and Republican values would be completely... Read more

Another classic work on the Mandaeans has been made available on the Internet Archive: Henri Pognon, Inscriptions mandaites des coupes de Khouabir. Read more

http://www.collegehumor.com/moogaloop/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=1830262&fullscreen=1 See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor. HT Targuman Read more

Last night’s episode of Heroes raised a lot of interesting subjects with its God-talk. First, there was Angela Petrelli mentioning that those who were involved in the attempt to give abilities artificially were “attempting to be better than God”. The whole notion of “playing God” is double edged, but one rarely hears talk of trying to “outdo God”. On the one hand, this series suggests that evolution in its divine beneficence endowed some people with remarkable, god-like abilities. On the... Read more

Anyone who followed the interaction between Jimmy Dunn and Theodore Weeden about the claims Kenneth Bailey made about oral tradition in Arab society, may be aware of an example Bailey appealed to in support of his case for “informal controlled oral tradition”. He mentions a story about missionary John Hogg recorded in the biography of him written by Rena Hogg, his daughter, a story that was still circulating when Bailey visited the area in which Hogg had worked after many... Read more

I don’t normally pass on reviews from Review of Biblical Literature on my blog, since I assume that most readers who would be interested in them receive them anyway. But the latest issue has a review of Intelligent Design: William A. Dembski & Michael Ruse in Dialogue (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2007) by Chris Heard, which will be of interest to those outside of Biblical studies. Read more

Pizza Lunch DiscussionWednesday, October 22nd, 12:00 – 2:00, Jordan Hall 340, Butler University What is the relationship between history and faith?In the rush to get from the story of the crucifixion to the story of the resurrection, have readers tended to miss some important details about what happened in between?Has contemporary American Christianity become too focused on the afterlife? Come join us for a discussion of these and other subjects touched on in the new book The Burial of Jesus:... Read more

I thought about calling this post “Go Take A Leap” but then decided against it. When we’re younger, leaps of faith are all the rage. Take a stand for something you believe to be true, whether your religious tradition or your favorite band. As both Blaise Pascal (sort of) and Neil Peart put it, “You bet your life”. We take a leap of faith in the sense of choosing something to believe in, and believing in it passionately. As we... Read more

I just wrote my blog action day post for this year, and set it to be published at 12:01 am on October 15th. This year’s subject is poverty. Do consider blogging on that subject then! Read more

There is now another review of The Burial of Jesus: History and Faith on Amazon. I invite you to take a look, and once you’ve read the book, I hope you’ll post your own review there! Read more