As I gear up to present Canon: The Card Game to game companies at Gen Con in August, I’ve been looking up more information about a variety of companies. If you have played Canon and have suggestions about companies that you think would be a good fit, please do let me know! One company that came to my attention during this process unfortunately does not have a booth at Gen Con: GMT Games, which specializes in historical reenactment military games. One of... Read more
A while back, Jim Davila asked whether the card game included certain extracanonical Jewish texts, and I told him that if he gave me a list, I could make a deck with whatever works he wishes. Some of the ones he mentioned were already in the Old Testament/Jewish Bible deck, and so he substituted a few others. The new deck includes 2 Enoch, Apocalypse of Abraham, the Book of Giants, Ahiqar, and more. You can purchase it here: https://www.thegamecrafter.com/games/canon:-the-card-game-old-testament-pseudepigrapha-edition- I have... Read more
There isn’t really debate about the plural of “Jesus.” If it were Latin, then perhaps “Jesi” would be appropriate. But as the Anglicized rendering of the Greek form of a Semitic name, it is better to go with “Jesuses.” I have yet to even begin watching the TV series American Gods, but I gather that it has had multiple Jesuses too. Here, however, I want to talk about the widespread mythicist claim that somehow the various things that people have said... Read more
I want to share some incredible music by Norwegian composer Frode Fjellheim. Here is “Psalm”: And here is his “Pater Noster”: Read more
I have been meaning to blog for a while about David Litwa’s book Iesus Deus. It offers a compelling case for acknowledging that Judaism’s distinctive emphasis on exclusive worship did not exclude the possibility of other figures being “divinized.” Here are some quotes and excerpts, to whet your appetite (since I read the book on my Kindle, I don’t have page numbers): My argument asserts not that early Christians borrowed their divine christology from Hellenistic theology, but that certain conceptions of deity... Read more
In his book Homo Deus, Yuval Noah Harari writes, “Despite all the talk of radical Islam and Christian fundamentalism, the most interesting place in the world from a religious perspective is not the Islamic State or the Bible Belt, but Silicon Valley. That’s where hi-tech gurus are brewing for us brave new religions that have little to do with God, and everything to do with technology. They promise all the old prizes – happiness, peace, prosperity and even eternal life –... Read more
Below you will find a call for papers that recently came to my attention, which will be of interest to those who research and write about matters related to science fiction. I don’t recall ever coming across a call for papers specifically about Star Trek Voyager, and so if you are a fan of that particular series, then this may represent a once in a lifetime opportunity not to be missed! Star Trek: Voyager deadline for submissions: October 28, 2017... Read more
And here’s another piece that I am sharing just because it is wonderful and not as widely known as it deserves to be: Joseph Jongen’s “Heroic Poem for Violin and Orchestra.” Of course, one could make the case that a “Heroic Poem” is particularly suitable for the 4th of July. But the truth is that I was planning on sharing it on the blog anyway. Nevertheless, as I thought about it more, I added the following when I shared this... Read more
I would love to see the people of the United States work together to “make America great again.” But in order to do that, we would need to agree on what constitutes “greatness.” And we would also need to have the humility to recognize that we have fallen short of that standard, through no one’s fault but our own. For Christians, Jesus’ teaching about greatness is the standard: “whoever would be great among you must be your servant.” The Gospel... Read more
A conference about science fiction in Tel Aviv? Sure sounds interesting to me! Here are the details: In/Out: Forms of Space in Science Fiction deadline for submissions: September 30, 2017 full name / name of organization: Department of English and American Studies, Tel-Aviv University contact email: [email protected] In/Out: Forms of Space in Science Fiction The Fifth International Symposium on the Poetics of Science Fiction Department of English and American Studies, Tel-Aviv University 18-19 March 2018 Submission Deadline: September 30, 2017... Read more
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