The season 2 premiere of LOST is wonderfully mind-bending, and showed the kinds of surprising things LOST had in store, as it started blowing the lid (literally) off of the mysteries it had set before us. It starts with things we aren’t immediately able to understand. But eventually, we discover that the person we are watching wake up, make breakfast, and exercise is Desmond, the man who has been living down the hatch. The hatch door said QUARANTINE on the... Read more
Readers of my blog, and people who follow me on Twitter or are connected with me on Facebook, will be familiar with Jeff Carter, whose blog That Jeff Carter Was Here features things like Bible-inspired limericks. But his blog has also regularly featured photography and poetry, and those posts were in some instances precursors to his new book, Muted Hosannas. I asked Jeff if I could interview him about the book, and he kindly accepted. I will put my questions... Read more
The Call for Papers for the 2015 Annual Meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature is now online. Here’s the call for papers from the Blogger and Online Publication section: The Blogger and Online Publication Section has focused most of its attention in recent years on the blogging side of its name. And thus discussions related to online publication – such as the challenges of preserving digital materials, and the ways in which online publications are appreciated, or fail to... Read more
I feel quite honored – my parody of “Viva La Vida,” “Viva La Library (The Information Literacy Song),” has been covered by the librarians at Ivy Tech Community College. I think they did a great job, and needless to say the video itself is much more impressive than my still slides with the words. They made a few adjustments to the words to better suit it to their students. Please do give them a “like” on YouTube and share this with your... Read more
Raphael Lataster has an online article allegedly about the evidence for a historical Jesus. It is incredibly disappointing. Some of what he writes is ridiculous – as for instance when he says: The Pauline Epistles, however, overwhelmingly support the “celestial Jesus” theory, particularly with the passage indicating that demons killed Jesus, and would not have done so if they knew who he was (see: 1 Corinthians 2:6-10). Humans – the murderers according to the Gospels – of course would still have... Read more
David Fitzgerald posted this on Facebook: If a “war is brewing,” are you involved in Wikipedia enough, or invested enough in the subject, to get involved? It was interesting to see the comments on Fitzgerald’s post. Some mythicists suggested that Richard Carrier having a peer-reviewed book published somehow proves that mythicism does not deserve this label. One can certainly make that case – if one is willing to grant that Intelligent Design, with its qualified supporters in the form of Michael... Read more
This bit of musical satire emerged from the course on Paul and the Early Church that I taught this semester. Some may just get a kick out of it, but others may be truly happy to have a Biblical alternative to “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.” Either way, I hope you enjoy it! Read more
Jeff Carter shared the above photo of a nativity scene, with dragons, inspired by this part of the Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew: And, lo, suddenly there came forth from the cave many dragons; and when the children saw them, they cried out in great terror. Then Jesus went down from the bosom of His mother, and stood on His feet before the dragons; and they adored Jesus, and thereafter retired. Then was fulfilled that which was said by David the prophet,... Read more
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In