For those who are unaware of it or simply unaware of all its features, the Internet Archive is a fantastically useful site. In addition to the possibility of finding materials that have since disappeared from the web as sites have become defunct, there are also books and movies in the public domain, such as H. G. Wells’ classic movie Things to Come (1936), Jean Danielou’s book Primitive Christian Symbols, and Rudolf Bultmann’s 1955 Gifford Lectures History and Eschatology. This is... Read more

I am still wondering about the saying attributed to Jesus in various forms in various Gospels (and in Mark, denied as a false accusation), “I will destroy this temple and in three days rebuild it”. That something like this was the earliest form is most probable, and it seems to be authentic. The big question is what he meant by it. On the one hand, given the other evidence that Jesus expected the kingdom to fully dawn in the very... Read more

OK, although it proves I’m a nerd (as if any of you had any doubts) I will come right out and admit it: ever since I was a child and first learned about the longest word in the dictionary I have been eagerly awaiting an opportunity to use it in a sentence. I suppose that is the silver lining I can find in the religious right – they have given me the opportunity to use the word. Establishment, as those... Read more

For those who are enthusiastic about the voices calling for a return to or preservation of the Christian foundations of our society, you will probably find yourself largely in agreement with the sentiment of another famous politician, who said: The national government will maintain and defend the foundations on which the power of our nation rests. It will offer strong protection to Christianity as the very basis of our collective morality. Today Christians stand at the head of our country.... Read more

Over the past year at Butler University the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences has been working to make more explicit its role at the university including in professional education. Faculty have been adding a ‘liberal arts statement’ to their syllabi to this end. Although I customize it for each course/syllabus, I have a longer standard statement which I originally posted on my old blog site. Here it is: The Bible, the Core Curriculum and the Liberal Arts Butler’s one-semester... Read more

In a recent discussion of the ending of Mark’s Gospel on X-Talk, it was suggested that having Jesus himself appear to the women, after his appearance has been promised through angels, is redundant, and I agree. But this is precisely what Matthew does to Mark’s narrative, i.e. create a story with precisely this redundancy, and this itself needs to be explained. It perhaps suggests that Matthew knew a story significantly different from Mark’s, and this was the best he could... Read more

There are things your minister, pastor, priest or preacher would love to be able to tell you, but cannot because of concerns about job security. I am not only thinking about the scandalous revelations that occasionally come to light, nor even the relatively minor fact that your pastor sometimes comes to the pulpit the same way all of us come to church at times – feeling less than inspired, having just argued with a spouse, or in some other way... Read more

This is just a quick entry to share a couple of useful sites I’ve learned about recently (one about a month or two ago, the other yesterday). The first is the site of a program called Scratch which one can download freely from the MIT web site. It allows one to make one’s own animation and even simple games through a much simpler interface than writing code could ever be (even in old fashioned BASIC, for those of us who... Read more

This entry is simply to share another interesting connection between Biblical literature and popular culture, in this instance Micah Kiel’s article on the Society of Biblical Literature web site entitled “Did Paul Get Whacked? The Endings of The Sopranos and the Acts of the Apostles“. The question asked there regarding what constitutes a ‘good ending’ obviously relates to the recent thread on the ending of Mark’s Gospel as well. Read more

Many thanks to Jim West for bringing recent news about liberation theology to our attention. What I find most troubling about most of the discussions of religion and economics is that we find ourselves choosing ‘the lesser of two evils’, as though our only options are Capitalism and Communism in a more or less pure form. My wife is from Romania and I lived there for three years, and I certainly find persuasive the argument that human nature makes Communism... Read more