In this episode of the ReligionProf Podcast I talk with Dr. Sara Parks about her important new book, Gender in the Rhetoric of Jesus: Women in Q. As we discuss in the podcast, you don’t need to accept the existence of the hypothetical Q source to find this book useful, as it is about the historical Jesus. I do nonetheless think that Q skeptics who read it will get a better sense of what kinds of phenomena emerge from the... Read more
I want to share some thoughts inspired by a recent Sunday school class of mine in which the beloved conservative question came up again: “But what if you’re wrong?” We had reached 1 John 2:2 some weeks earlier, and the reference to Jesus being an atoning sacrifice not only for our sins, but those of the entire world, led a retired minister to bring up the topic of universalism. I was quick to emphasize that there is such a thing... Read more
I decided to wait until the second part aired before blogging about this episode, since the first part ended with a cliffhanger and a major reveal that had fans excited. As the title suggests, the episode is having fun parodying the spy thriller genre in general and the James Bond franchise in particular. In the story, aliens have been attacking and rewriting the DNA of spies around the world. As the Doctor and companions work with MI-6 to investigate, they... Read more
Beth Mardutho: The Syriac Institute [www.bethmardutho.org] announces six Digital Humanities Fellowships and two Syriac language courses to be offered in the summer of 2020.  Digital Humanities Fellowships The Institute invites graduate students and recent graduates to apply for Digital Humanities Fellowships. The successful candidates will have the opportunity to work on the Institute’s projects including the newly launched Simtho Syriac Thesaurus [simtho.bethmardutho.org] including computational tagging of texts, the Syriac Electronic-Data Research Archive [sedra.bethmardutho.org], the Qoruyo project for developing models... Read more
For the early part of the movie Ad Astra, I felt like it was stunning visuals in search of a story. By the end, I realized that the first part of the movie and its overall feel and pacing are central to its message. It was helpful that, immediately after finishing watching it, I saw that Paul Levinson reviewed the movie as well on his blog. He describes it as the 2001 of the 21st century. I think that’s a helpful... Read more
American Literature Association San Diego, CA May 21-24 Two Gileads in Contemporary Fiction: Margaret Atwood and Marilynne Robinson In light of the 2019 publication of The Testaments (Margaret Atwood’s long-awaited sequel to The Handmaid’s Tale), the widespread popularity of the television adaptation of Atwood’s fiction, and a forthcoming special issue of Christianity & Literature on the subject of literature and the Christian Right, the American Religion and Literature Society and the Marilynne Robinson Society will co-host a special session on the two Gileads of contemporary... Read more
There have been suggestions over the years that Jesus faked his own death, Hugh Schonfeld’s book The Passover Plot being the best-known example. That’s not what this post is about. If anyone is disappointed by that fact, let me direct them to one of my earliest published articles, “Uncontrived Messiah or Passover Plot? A Study of A Johannine Apologetic Motif.” It was published in Irish Biblical Studies, and you can read it online courtesy of Butler University’s institutional repository. Here in... Read more
It is often strange for professors and other researchers to look back on the calendar year and ahead at the one about to begin. Our rhythm follows the academic year, and so we would more naturally celebrance new year’s day in August, and make resolutions then. It is nonetheless worth joining in with this calendrical event and reminding ourselves of things accomplished and experienced. Definitely the biggest life event of the past year was that my father passed away. The... Read more
I thought I’d share a recording of the lunchtime discussion I led on the topic of “Robotic Religion” as part of the Religion program at Butler University’s lunchtime discussion series Religion Matters. It focuses on the current situation we find ourselves in, and thus on robots between their use in factories (so familiar we rarely think about it) and as depicted in science fiction (which connects with all sorts of interesting questions, but so much so that we can focus all... Read more
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How Times Have Changed
It is easy to forget that not that long ago, religious and political stances aligned themselves very differently. As a case in point, Jim Burklo looks at William Jennings Bryan, most famous for his role in the (in)famous Scopes Trial. Here is a lengthy excerpt from an even longer piece that is just fascinating: Imagine Bernie Sanders’ public policy prescriptions woven into a fundamentalist Christian religious tract. Does that idea hurt your head? Well, it’s not a new one. Let’s... Read more