#CFP Jewish Science Fiction and Fantasy Criticism

Last updated on: October 22, 2020 at 10:42 pm By James F. McGrath

Valerie Estelle Frankel shared this via RelCFP: Hello, everyone. I’m editing a series with Rowman & Littlefield/Lexington on a line of academic books critically analyzing elements of Jewish science fiction and fantasy (that’s the series title). As such, I’d love some authors with concepts to write about. At this stage, a paragraph-long proposal emailed to [email protected] with a subject of JEWISH SPEC-FIC would be great. Here are some examples: The Secret Jewish Roots of Star Wars (or some other top franchise) Batwoman to Felicity: Jewish... Read more

Statement of Faith for Biblical Literalists

Last updated on: October 21, 2020 at 11:59 am By James F. McGrath

Statement of Faith for Biblical Literalists ARTICLE I: One day = six days Genesis 1:1-2:3 says God completed the creation of the heavens and earth in six days. Genesis 2:4 speaks of the (single) day in which God made the earth and the heavens. ARTICLE II: A circle has four corners In Isaiah 40:22 the earth is said to be a circle. Elsewhere (e.g. Isaiah 11:12; Job 37:3; Revelation 7:1; 20:8), the Bible speaks of the ‘four corners of the... Read more

More Bible and Music

Last updated on: October 22, 2020 at 1:41 pm By James F. McGrath

Let me begin with two items of news from around blogs. One is the discovery of what might perhaps be an underground music room on the Temple Mount! Another is a piece by Malcolm Lipkin inspired by the story of Naboth’s Vineyard in the Bible. Now, getting to the actual music I want to share in this post, some things that are either new to me or which I have enjoyed previously but not shared on my blog before. Let... Read more

Duel of the Antichrists

Last updated on: October 22, 2020 at 11:07 pm By James F. McGrath

It never fails. Anyone can find a way to identify any candidate or political leader as the antichrist. The worrying thing is when it is done during an election season and done in a partisan way, as though only one candidate can be subjected to that treatment but the other not. I have blogged about Trump as antichrist before, but then I focused on the problems with envisaging a single antichrist, and the irony that those with oversensitive antichrist-detection antennas... Read more

Announcing the Imminent Arrival of Metatron

Last updated on: October 21, 2020 at 11:55 am By James F. McGrath

Revealing Ancient Knowledge An initiative of Bible and Religions of the Ancient Near East Collective (BRANE), hosted by Renewed Philology at Yale. Metatron is a journal of modern philology and the ancient imagination offering new vistas on the cultures of the ancient Mediterranean and Near East. Named after the mediating angel of Jewish mysticism, it is designed to open cutting-edge research to a broad intellectual community. As an open-access journal, Metatron is designed to be: Conversational but Focused: each volume presents a dialogue between... Read more

Revisiting the Slippery Slope

Last updated on: October 18, 2020 at 2:59 pm By James F. McGrath

On the one hand, as I have said before, there is no slippery slope as traditionally conceived of by conservatives who warn of any departure from whatever they consider traditional and true. One of the most common arguments used by “fundamentalists” (or whatever one may wish to call those who claim to accept the Bible as inerrant and that it is all to be accepted and believed) is that rejecting their view of the Bible puts one on a “slippery slope” down... Read more

Happy Open Access Week!

Last updated on: October 19, 2020 at 3:57 pm By James F. McGrath

It is the tenth Open Access Week and I didn’t want to let the occasion pass by without a mention. Open Access is a term that covers a wide array of models whereby the products of scholarly research are made available to the general public. If the term is new to you, here’s a very brief introduction to Open Access. I have been working to make sure that as much of what I write is freely available to the extent... Read more

Literalists aren’t Literally Literalists

Last updated on: October 18, 2020 at 2:36 pm By James F. McGrath

There are things I’ve said in the past about this topic that are worth sharing again, I believe. Here I compile some things from a number of posts. First: Fundamentalist interpretation of the Bible should never be referred to as “Biblical literalism” since it only insists on the Bible being literally true when it is desirable to do so, and not where it is “obviously” a metaphor, such as the dome over the Earth, or in its teaching about gluttony or giving... Read more

#CFP Divine Bodies

Last updated on: October 16, 2020 at 2:59 pm By James F. McGrath

Theology & Religious Studies at the University of Glasgow is delighted to be hosting an online, one-day interdisciplinary conference on the broad theme of Divine Bodies in relation to the Bible and the biblical world. This conference seeks to bring together a range of perspectives on topics including ethnicity, disability, class, gender, sex and other identity markers in relation to the body, the Bible, and the divine. In a world that is increasingly politically polarised and that endangers the lives and... Read more

The Whore of Babylon on the Phone

Last updated on: October 16, 2020 at 4:12 pm By James F. McGrath

I get unsolicited phone calls and emails all the time, but yesterday’s was a first. While I was out of the office, someone I don’t know called my work number and left a voicemail saying that she urgently wants to talk with me about…the whore of Babylon. Part of me feels that perhaps this is a Republican voter who just noticed for the first time that there is a striking resemblance between this depiction of the Roman Empire found in... Read more