Marek Vinklat has shared a book chapter of his on Academia.edu, “Forgotten Mandaic Magic Texts in the British Museum.” The chapter begins by noting that there are numerous neglected, misidentified, and otherwise unknown Mandaic texts in various museums and libraries, and then goes on to offer a study of one of them. Read more
I need to get back to my project of paraphrasing Romans to give modern Christian readers a sense of the impact Paul’s words would have had in his time, before there was a label “Christian” and when “the people of God” meant Jews or Israelites. In the mean time, I recently learned that Judy Stack-Nelson has been translating her way through Romans, and so I offer her most recent post in that series. And if that’s not enough for you,... Read more
This is a rather distinctive Christmas song by the band The New Pornographers (HT Anthony LeDonne). Here are the lyrics: Joseph, Who Understood Rumors are flying All over Galilee these days And Mary, I’m trying To be cool When my friends walk by them They cannot look at me In the eye Baby, I’m trying You’re asking me to believe in too many things You’re asking me to believe in too many things I know this child Was... Read more
The first proper trailer for the Doctor Who Christmas special, “The Time of the Doctor,” has been released. They seriously need to give the “X of the Doctor” titles a rest after this, and leave some for the 100th anniversary specials… Read more
Via Hemant Mehta I learned that cats have occupied creches in Brooklyn. They also seem to have removed Jesus in order to make room for themselves! If refrains of “Put Christ Back In Christmas” were ever appropriate, this might be it. And given that cats are atheists (except for the ones who hold ancient Egyptian views of their own divinity), this is perhaps unsurprising. Indeed, perhaps they have situated themselves where they have precise in order to demand worship! Someone... Read more
What’s New in Papyrology highlighted some new images of Greek manuscripts that have been placed online by the British Library. They include the Egerton Gospel: And this fragment of the Gospel of Thomas in Greek: Also of related interest, a new law in Norway is requiring the digitization of all books. Read more
Jeff Carter has composed a more authentic Christmas carol than most, about the historical St. Nicholas and what he was actually famous for. Enjoy! Read more
A new article in The Bible and Interpretation concludes in the following way: Precisely because I am quite aware of the extent to which the Canonical Gospels are the result of a process of doctoring the historical figure of Jesus – a process which has had wide-ranging distorting effects –, I think I can better understand at least one of the reasons which lead some scholars (and also other readers) to deem these sources as desperately unhelpful and to remove... Read more
Michael L. Satlow shared an idea for an in-class activity, which asks students to imagine that all interested parties – Marcionites, Gnostics, Rabbis, Montanists, and Christians representing what became orthodoxy – were invited to a council to discuss the assembly of a canon of Christian Scripture. It seems like a good in-class role playing activity. What do you think the result might be? What else might have gotten in? What might not have made the cut? Or do you think... Read more
Many things are better in 7/8 time. Here’s “Sleigh Ride”: And here’s “Good King Wenceslas”: The latter video I’ve shared before – the arrangement and fiddle playing are by Alex de Pue, brother of Zach de Pue, who is the concertmaster of the Indianapolist Symphony Orchestra, as well as a member of Time for Three. Read more
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