I am sure you’ve heard by now of about the controversy that the British food store Greggs caused by substituting a sausage roll in place of the baby Jesus in a manger scene. There has been a lot of humor around the topic, however, some of which might be missed if one does not see the tweets and Facebook comments that have been offered in response. Let me begin with the one that led me down this rabbit hole, which... Read more
Ivy Helman writes in her blog post “Academics and Activism”: Life in an ivory tower would only serve to distance one’s self from activism. Why do such a thing? Then the answer came to me: privilege. One can afford to step back. One can choose to work in the ivory tower glancing down at the people below. One’s life and one’s position in it are secure, anddesert-view-tower one has the time and the space to explore eccentricities, minute nuances and... Read more
I’ve shared a number of these kinds of memes and infographics before, and so I thought that it was worth adding this one to the collection. This one is interesting because, without saying so explicitly, it nonetheless leads the reader to the conclusion that biblical literalism is an impossibility. It is impossible to know the relevant ancient languages as a native speaker. It is impossible to know the relevant ancient cultures as an insider. If the literal meaning of the... Read more
Here’s a piece of music, shared with you for no other reason than that it is breathtakingly beautiful! Read more
This call for papers will interest some blog readers every bit as much as it interests me: FSNNA Conference: Fandom—Past, Present, Future deadline for submissions: February 15, 2018 full name / name of organization: Fan Studies Network North America contact email: [email protected] Fan Studies Network North America is proud to announce its first conference: Fandom—Past, Present, Future DePaul University, Chicago, IL October 25-27, 2018 Building on the success of the annual Fan Studies Network conference in the United Kingdom,... Read more
Richard Bautch presented first, and was the first of two papers related to games – the second of which is by me, and I did not take notes during that, obviously, nor will I try the patience of my blog readers by talking about my game again in what is already a long blog post. Bautch teaches a senior seminar on prophets, and has students build a video game, The Mini Adventures: Prophets Edition. The four modules of the course need to... Read more
I wasn’t able to post about yesterday’s Digital Humanities session immediately because of a lack of free wifi, so I saved it for this morning. In the first paper in Monday afternoon’s Digital Humanities session, Hayim Lapin and Yael Netzer spoke about developing a Canonical Text Service for Biblical and Rabbinic texts. A CTS is a set of stable ways to refer to texts or part of texts, a URN (Uniform Resource Identifier). Lapin talked about XML, TEI, and Epidoc, while... Read more
I presided over a session this morning about the use of spectral imaging technology to study palimpsests, i.e. the use of invisible ranges of light to be able to see the erased texts in manuscripts that were scraped and reused. The session focused on the technology used and the Sinai and Jubilees palimpsest projects. St. Catherine’s monastery is the oldest continuously-functioning library on the planet, and so it is not surprising that remarkable finds have been made there. Among the palimpsest... Read more
I mentioned in an earlier post that I would be missing both the Durham University reception and the religion bloggers’ gathering yesterday evening (to say nothing of the Enoch Seminar gathering). The reason was an invitation to dinner from Wisam Breegi and his family. Breegi is an amazing inventor in the realm of medical technology, working on an affordable high tech yet portable incubator. He is also a Mandaean. It was so interesting to hear how two generations of Mandaeans who have settled in... Read more
The session I attended on Saturday morning was part of the Digital Humanities program unit, and was a panel focused on the book Liquid Scripture by Jeffrey Siker. What does it mean to go back to scrolling through Bibles? What happens when the Bible is read in primarily or exclusively on a screen? Claire Clivaz spoke first, pointing out that, while an index to Thomas Aquinas is considered the first DH project, a biblical index that was created using computer around... Read more
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