CFP: Holy Hero(in)es. Literary Constructions of Heroism in Late Antique and Early Medieval Hagiography

Last updated on: June 27, 2015 at 12:01 pm By James F. McGrath

This call for papers came to my attention via the Hugoye list. It is connected with the interesting project titled “Novel Saints. Ancient novelistic heroism in the hagiography of Late Antiquity and the early Middle Ages.” Call for Papers Holy Hero(in)es. Literary Constructions of Heroism in Late Antique and Early Medieval Hagiography International conference at Ghent University (Belgium), Thursday 18th to Saturday 20th February 2016 The ERC research group Novel Saints (Ghent University) builds on and contributes to a recent... Read more

Heterosexual Marriage Under Threat (Map)

Last updated on: June 27, 2015 at 10:43 am By James F. McGrath

Fred Clark shared this helpful map, showing all the states where the Supreme Court’s marriage equality decision poses no threat to traditional heterosexual marriages. Meanwhile, Mike Huckabee has released this campaign image: If it doesn’t disturb you, it should. Because on the one hand, what it says is quite obvious. Did anyone not know that “the Supreme Court is not the Supreme Being”? Did anyone suggest that it was? So, on the other hand, what Huckabee is indicating is that he... Read more

Wish I Had Said That

Last updated on: June 27, 2015 at 6:07 am By James F. McGrath

Another great cartoon from Spike Davis. I wonder how many more things that Jesus never said, but some people think he did, you can list. And I wonder whether imagining Jesus saying he wished he’d come up with a particular phrase is a helpful reminder that he was a human being – a gifted teller of stories, and a charismatic leader with a powerful moral vision, to be sure, but not less human because of that. Read more

Israel Trip Trailer #3

Last updated on: June 26, 2015 at 1:31 pm By James F. McGrath

And here is a third trailer for the trip I am planning to lead to Israel and the West Bank in the summer of 2016. I made a point of including some footage from the Dead Sea and the Judaean desert which didn’t get included in the other two trailers. Read more

Breaking News: Supreme Court Decides in Favor of Marriage Equality!

Last updated on: June 26, 2015 at 10:27 am By James F. McGrath

The news has just broken that the Supreme Court of the United States has issued its decision in a case that came before it regarding marriage between two people of the same gender. Their decision legalizes same-sex marriage throughout the United States. This is a major milestone in U. S. history. Click through to read the full text of the decision on the Supreme Court website, or on the Mother Jones website, with additional information on the SCOTUS blog. The... Read more

Review of Maurice Casey’s Jesus: Evidence and Argument or Mythicist Myths?

Last updated on: June 26, 2015 at 10:05 am By James F. McGrath

My review of Maurice Casey’s book Jesus: Evidence and Argument or Mythicist Myths? has been published in Review of Biblical Literature. Below is an excerpt from the end of the review. Please click through to read the rest. I suspect that many will find the tone of Casey’s volume rather too acerbic—especially if they have never had to deal with online mythicists themselves. One must keep in mind the risks that were involved in writing a book like this. As scientists and... Read more

CFP: Sacred Texts and Comics: Religion, Faith, and Graphic Narratives

Last updated on: June 26, 2015 at 8:36 am By James F. McGrath

CFP: Sacred Texts and Comics: Religion, Faith, and Graphic Narratives Ken Koltun-Fromm, Haverford College ([email protected]) Assaf Gamzou, Israeli Cartoon Museum ([email protected]) Call for Papers Sacred Texts and Comics: Religion, Faith, and Graphic Narratives The last decade has produced critical and expressive studies in sacred canonical texts and comics. Witness, for example, the artistic works from R. Crumb’s The Book of Genesis (2009) and JT Waldman’s Megillat Esther (2005), as well as scholarly publications from Karline McLain’s India’s Immortal Comic Books (2009), A.... Read more

God Outranks Ken Ham

Last updated on: June 26, 2015 at 6:41 am By James F. McGrath

From God of Evolution. Young-earth creationists regularly claim that accepting evolution is putting the words of human beings above the Word of God. That is precisely backwards, Biblically speaking as well as logically. Young-earth creationists claim to believe that God is the Creator, and so rejecting the testimony of the work of God’s hands is rejecting God’s own testimony. And what they appeal to instead of the work of God’s own hands are – you guessed it – human writings. The... Read more

CFP: Doctor Who and History: A Cultural Perspective

Last updated on: June 25, 2015 at 8:46 pm By James F. McGrath

From the Doctor Who and History blog: CALL FOR CHAPTER PROPOSALS: DOCTOR WHO AND HISTORY Deadline for abstracts: 1 September 2015 (contributors will be notified within two weeks of the deadline) When Sydney Newman created a new family-orientated show for the BBC back in early 1963, he envisioned it as being, in John Reith’s terms, to “educate, inform and entertain”, one in which all stories “were to be based on scientific and historical facts as we knew them at that time”. It... Read more

Nonviolent Conflict Resolution in Israel and Palestine

Last updated on: June 25, 2015 at 10:05 am By James F. McGrath

The above video is of a discussion that took place at Harvard Divinity School, on the topic of peacemaking and non-violent conflict resolution in Israel and Palestine. Read more