I had hoped to make a recording of my class today, but we ended up discussing points raised by a student’s presentation, and so I recorded the above lecture in my office later in the day, so that I can post it and not take more class time covering the key points. I’d be interested to hear from scholars whose expertise is primarily in Hebrew Bible and/or the history and archaeology of ancient Israel, to get your input on whether... Read more
I was gearing up to write a post about the slaughter of the Canaanites, a topic that came up in my class today. And then I finally got around to watching this Saturday Night Live video, “Djesus Uncrossed,” which several blogs I read had already shared: I could not help but connect the two, since the same themes – the use of violence, morality, Old Testament vs. New Testament, all come up in connection with this as well. And this... Read more
Thanks to a friend who is a time traveler, I can share this interesting higher education news report he brought back from 2033: A recent study by education specialists could lead to a radical revolution in universities around the world. A multi-year study of a range of classes has discovered that a new approach, referred to as Small-scale Interactive Classroom Conversations (SICCs), may have the potential to achieve learning and comprehension goals which far exceed what is possible using the... Read more
Bruce Gerencser shared this insightful quote from Brian McLaren’s book Everything Must Change: Jesus, Global Crises, and a Revolution of Hope: This eschatological understanding of a violent Second Coming leads us to believe that in the end, even God finds it impossible to fix the world apart from violence and coercion… If we remain charmed by this kind of eschatology, we will be forced to see the nonviolence of the Jesus of the Gospels as a kind of strategic fake-out, like... Read more
I mentioned the idea of a rock mass recently, and had the above drawn to my attention. Read more
David Hayward's blog is now at Patheos, and his latest cartoon is a poignant pun. Getting any kind of “change” in a church can be unrealistic, and may perhaps even sound like a joke. Yet Jesus himself clearly was an agent of change, both individual and social. And so we ought to reflect on the irony that so many who self-identify as followers of Jesus are resistant to change, rather than at the forefront of bringing about. Read more
HT Nikki Stafford on Facebook Read more
Today's Speed Bump. Initially I was going to give the post the title “There's a Snake in my Boots!” Read more
Geology professor Callan Bentley received an e-mail from the Discovery Institute asking for permission to use a photo of his. He refused, explaining why. He has shared the back and forth between himself and them on his blog (HT P. Z. Myers and Hemant Mehta). The entire thing is worth reading, but I’ll quote the ending of the post here, not just to give you a taste, but also because it gets at a core issue: Pseudoscience like Intelligent Design puts... Read more
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