The blog Think Christian asks whether it is appropriate for a Bible teacher to question the Bible. A parent, angry about the appearance made by Kent Dobson in a documentary that raised questions but did not answer them, objected that “The Bible is never to be questioned!” My own feeling is that this slogan is only used by people who have never studied the Bible in depth, who’ve never opened an academic commentary or any other scholarly book that might... Read more

Here’s another phishing attempt that made it through my spam filter. I have no idea what “Steam” is, but I hope those who do know don’t fall for this hoax and part with their personal information. The link doesn’t take you where it claims to, and the e-mail address likewise shows that the e-mail isn’t from the company it claims to be from ([email protected]). ____________________ Dear Steam user, This is an automated message generated by Steam account administration. From high... Read more

Indiana made the front page of the New York Times today. It is a good day in the world when a Midwest state’s voter ID law makes the front page, I presume. That requiring people to show that they are who they say they are, when it doesn’t cost them anything, should have to go before the Supreme Court seems a waste of taxpayers’ money. Then again, one has to deal with the BMV to get a free ID, and... Read more

Many of you know that from time to time I highlight those phishing and scam e-mails that make it through my spam filter, for the sake of the gullible who might at least have the common sense to google keywords from the e-mail, even if they clearly lack the common sense to know that no one will give a stranger millions of dollars. Someone just pointed out to me a site called 419 Eater. It is dedicated to the “sport”... Read more

April 27, 2008 To: Members of the SBL RE: AAR Announcement On April 14th the AAR issued the following statement to its members: In light of scheduling and logistical problems connected with the proposed Independent Annual Meeting, and given the views our members expressed in our recent member survey, the [AAR] Board, in its April 12, 2008 meeting, approved a recommendation that the AAR begin scheduling concurrent, yet independent Annual Meetings with the Society of Biblical Literature as soon as... Read more

Here’s a little piece (turned into a MIDI file using Finale) that I wrote for my wife on our last anniversary. With all the music I’ve been posting lately, I thought I’d share one of my own as well… Read more

I’ve been tagged with a meme, even though I still have an earlier meme I haven’t got to yet. John Hobbins draws attention to Foreign Policy’s top 100 intellectuals. I am at least vaguely familiar with the writings and/or work of less than half of them – which isn’t good, I presume! John Hobbins (who apparently has a different idea of “fun” than most other people I know) suggests that we do the following with the top 100: (1) a... Read more

Having brought up music, let me share with readers of this blog some of my favorite music. Below are two clips from YouTube of performances of parts of the violin concerto by Erich Wolfgang Korngold. You have almost certainly heard music by Korngold before, and just didn’t know it. If you’ve seen the classic movie Robin Hood with Errol Flynn, you also heard the music Korngold composed for the film in the background. Here’s Hilary Hahn playing the first movement:... Read more

As the semester draws to a close (today is the last day of classes for us), I thought I’d repost an end-of-semester entry from my old blog site, originally posted in May 2005: I had the great privilege of attending a fantastic concert at Clowes Hall here at Butler University. The program was Stravinski’s Symphony of Psalms and Vaughan Williams’ Symphony No.1, ‘A Sea Symphony’. Although illustrating different sorts of music composed in the 20th century, they both share my... Read more

This phishing attempt had no “Dear Sir or Madam”, no introductory line. Just a request for personal information and the claim that one would be sent an ATM card that has a large cash line behind it. Why would a random senator send you such a thing? Why would the senator have a Hong Kong e-mail address? If you arrived here because you were checking the validity of an e-mail like this which you received, you shouldn’t need me to... Read more