I prefer to gamify my approach to grading for a number of reasons. The main one is to give students the freedom to try things, fail, and try again and still have it count as success. Often those who succeed most quickly and easily were either lucky, or had some advantage others did not. If what we value is not just what students bring with them already at the start of a class, but what they achieve during a semester... Read more
On International Women’s Day, my wife encouraged me to share at least one excerpt from the book that I am working on, What Jesus Learned From Women. I tried making several memes, with several different quotes from the drafts of chapters. One of them I shared on social media. All of them are included here, as a glimpse of some of the things I’ll say. Clearly I’m not paying enough attention to making sure that I say things that are brief,... Read more
Coronavirus. Covid-19. SARS. Pandemic. Many people are troubled by events that are unprecedented in their lifetime, with unfamiliar names and obscure terminology just making things more puzzling. Some will naturally turn to the Bible looking for answers, as well as comfort and guidance. ”What does the Bible say about Coronavirus?” is a question that is trending on Google. A number of websites claim to provide answers to this question. As a biblical scholar I am dismayed by much of what... Read more
A chemical study has determined the place of origin of the so-called “Nazareth Inscription.” Although in theory it is possible that the marble came from Cyprus and was used for an inscription in Nazareth, it is more likely that this artifact never actually had anything to do with Jesus. Plundering, robbing, desecrating, reusing, and doing other things to tombs was a wider issue completely apart from Jesus. It is probably an authentic edict from Caesar, but originally had nothing to... Read more
In a blog post about the discovery that all the supposed Dead Sea Scrolls at the Museum of the Bible are fakes, Steve Wiggins wrote: Biblical scholars often get accused of taking the life out of things. Would it be better to believe in something that is exposed as a fake? Not exactly debunkers, scholars are those who ask pointed questions of unstated assumptions. If some antiquities dealer claims to have access to material kept out of official hands, and is willing to charge... Read more
International Conference “#DHJewish – Jewish Studies in the Digital Age”, Luxembourg Centre for Contemporary and Digital History (C²DH), University of Luxembourg, 12-13 January 2021. In all humanities disciplines, scholars find themselves confronted with the rapidly increasing availability of digital resources (data), new technologies to interrogate and analyze them (tools), and the question of how to engage with these developments. The field of Jewish Studies is no exception. Even if applications of computing in the humanities go back at least 60 years, the... Read more
Religions borrow from one another. So do scientific theories, political ideologies, musicians, and all human cultures and their expressions. We also have a great many shared symbols as human beings, which means that not every similarity indicates borrowing. Failure to recognize the last point is what Sandmel famously called “parallelomania.” One instance of borrowing and of deep similarity of outlook and system across a wide diversity of details is, rather ironically, the meme that will not die claiming that Jesus... Read more
An interesting exploration of the significance and freedom of speech. Here’s an excerpt: Consider science. I think that science has been more successful than anything else at dragging us closer to the truth. And I think in certain ways science is a model of a kind of market place of ideas. The core idea is that anyone and everyone can contribute and that all the ideas and information are available to everyone. No one mandates anyone else’s opinions about, for... Read more
I blogged recently about faculty transitioning courses online on short notice. For some faculty this will be particularly challenging as they have never taught online before. The first time is always hardest, and so those colleagues need even more support than they normally would shifting to online teaching, which is even then usually a significant investment of time and input. In talking about this, I think many may forget that there are also large number of students for whom this... Read more
This call for papers will be of interest even if you’re not thinking of presenting, just to find out more about who is writing sci-fi in the German-speaking world. Frauen schreiben keine Science Fiction. Dass dem nicht so ist, ist eine Binsenweisheit. Trotzdem hält sich hartnäckig die Ansicht, dass Science Fiction ‚eigentlich‘ Männersache sei. Geht es doch um Technik und Pioniere, die ins Unbekannte vorstoßen. Selbst Kenner des Genres können häufig nur eine Handvoll Autorinnen nennen: Natürlich Mary Shelley, der... Read more
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