I’m long overdue to blog about another book, and it makes for a natural follow up to another recent book review here on the blog. I am referring to Biblical Aramaic: A Reader and Handbook. It is mainly aimed at those studying “biblical Aramaic” which means the Aramaic used in books like Daniel. My own interests intersect more with the Aramaic spoken somewhat later, in the time of Jesus, and with dialects relevant to other still later literature I’ve studied... Read more
It took me far longer than it should have to watch this pilot for a TV series called Oasis, based on The Book of Strange New Things. I’m kind of sorry that it didn’t get elaborated on, although it was already departing sufficiently from the book for me to be worried, if also intrigued and curious to see more. If you’re a fan of The Book of Strange New Things, what are your thoughts on this “strange new” take on its story?... Read more
I was delighted to get a chance to see the new movie The Banker prior to its release, and was rather dismayed when I thought that such an important movie was likely to be completely overshadowed and therefore missed due to the pandemic. On the other hand, I told myself that people all over the world have been told to stay at home unless absolutely necessary, and so perhaps this movie recommendation will be well timed, given that the movie (as... Read more
Returning after a very long break to my recap of this deeply meaningful event that took place in November 2019 in San Diego. This post covers the first part of Day Two. The day was so rich and full of helpful insights that sharing the notes I took easily fills multiple posts. I hope that sharing them benefits others even though these posts cannot do justice to the experience. The morning began with a session on “Vocation, Interfaith, and Religious... Read more
I am delighted that Matthew Korpman has revived his blog, and even more so given the topic of his first post in more than a year is about Baby Yoda and apocrypha. He starts the post with this: When my wife started to watch the show, she had expectations for many of the memes to appear in the actual episodes. She assumed that the dialogue in these memes was based, at least loosely, on actual things in the official show.... Read more
As talk of a stay at home order was just beginning, my home was in the midst of some long-planned home renovation. Specifically, a bathroom that badly needed a new tub was scheduled to get a much more substantial makeover, and this had seemed likely to be the perfect time to get this work done as it corresponded with the week of my university’s spring break. What does this have to do with faith? Please bear with me and I’ll... Read more
I was happy that last year, well before final exam week arrived, my university leadership noticed that Ramadan, which slowly moves across the solar calendar year after year, was coming to overlap with that period in our academic calendar. Given that this has not regularly been an issue, and that while most Muslims fast during the day in this period they expect to go about their business (metaphorically at least but often literally as well), I was surprised that some... Read more
My Sunday school class celebrated Zoomcharist (communion via Zoom), and not only did we have individuals join us who never or rarely made it to the class when it met physically at the church building on Sunday mornings, but we all saw one another’s faces. Depending on the device we used, some had to swipe between screens showing four at a time, while others could see the entire group at once. But never had I seen all these faces that... Read more
Vance Morgan writes of the story of Thomas in the Gospel of John: There is another way to read this account, a way in which Thomas turns out not to be a spiritual weakling, but rather to be a model of how to approach the spiritual life…Embedded in the middle of this misunderstood story is a fundamental truth: A true encounter with the divine is never second-hand. Hearing about someone else’s experiences, trying to find God through the haze of... Read more
If the pandemic’s isolation of us all persists for another three years, you’ll be happy I recommended all three of these volumes to you. But more likely it will simply be the case that they will be useful to you despite being able to get back out and do other things more than you currently can. Either way, it would be easy to simply wallow in distractions under the circumstances in which I currently find myself, but forcing myself to... Read more
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