When Mike Kok shared a classroom handout which included the criteria for inclusion in the New Testament canon back in August, I created a draft post, to remind myself to come back to the canon game that I talked about wanting to make. Ultimately, the issue of catholicity or general widespread use matters most; apostolicity doesn’t depend on the name on the work but the case made for accepting the name on a work, or assuming one that isn’t there; orthodoxy... Read more
“There has only been one time in American history where the fear of refugees coming to wipe out the people here actually came true, and we'll be celebrating it this Thursday.” -John Oliver Read more
Via Michael Heiser. Read more
Traditions or Eastern Late Antiquity co-sponsored a session with the SBL section on Religious Worlds of Late Antiquity, focused on exploring and problematizing the phenomena that have been labeled “Christianization” and “Islamicization.” The papers looked at topics at the intersection of the two traditions, such as celibacy, and sacred space. I was delighted to see how well-attended it was. Read more
The SBL student advisory board put together a wonderful luncheon with great speakers who gave great advice. The funniest was when one speaker, who had become a dean, shared what a colleague told him: now that you are a dean, in two years you will stop writing; in four years you will stop reading; and in six years you will stop thinking. The rest of the session had faculty like myself sitting at a table with students and talking informally.... Read more
One important element in the decision to bring the Blogger and Online Publication program unit to an end was the fact that the Digital Humanities program unit was open to folding our area within theirs. Indeed, they invited me to join their steering committee, and we had a meeting over breakfast this morning, discussing lots of exciting ideas about what the program unit will do not just next year but even further into the future. Having joined the steering committee,... Read more
The Society of Biblical Literature has made a number of papers from a 2010 session on the question “What is Bible?” available online. Since I explored the nature of canons in my own paper, this seems like an appropriate time to highlight this. There are other SBL papers online, and so it is worth exploring them, whether you are a scholar or a layperson interested in Biblical studies. Daniel Kirk and Pete Enns had a conversation about “What is the... Read more
It was a fantastic event, and I will let the pictures speak for themselves for the most part. But I do want to thank Meehan’s for providing a great venue and delicious food and drinks, and our waiter Sean who took care of us so well. If I counted correctly, 36 people attended. Thank you all for coming – I hope you all enjoyed the event as much as I did! Read more
The first paper in the TELA session on the theme “Bordering Others: Examining Religious Community in Eastern Late Antiquity” was by Jennifer Hart and focused in using orthopraxy to define “true” Mandaeism. She began with a quote from the work The Thousand and Twelve Questions, which is focused on ritual error and what to do when it occurs. There are forty references to ritual gaffes in the first fifty pages. Errors are referred to as “blows” and dealing with them... Read more
For the last ever Blogger and Online Publication session, we had two papers and a panel lined up. First up was Rick Brannan, who talked about the process of blogging as a stepping stone to producing a book. He invited the audience to take photos and blog and tweet as he spoke, and so I obliged and took a photo as he was presenting. Brannan told the story of how his interest in apocryphal Gospels was rekindled, and noticing that... Read more
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