David Henson shares how Henry Borga from Palm Springs, Florida has created controversy by asking that his parish literally follow Matthew 5:44, and pray for the soul of Osama bin Laden. http://www.wptv.com/video/videoplayer.swf?dppversion=9138 Read more

I’m grateful to Charles Häberl for drawing to my attention the following FAQ a professor made for students regarding the rapture, which some professors whose classes are not yet done may wish to distribute to their own students over the next few days: FAQ for my Students: The Rapture Q: With the rapture coming, should I bother working on my final paper?A: Yes. The odds are you will not be judged worthy of ascent to heaven, in which case your... Read more

Tony Burke has shared further thoughts from the Secret Mark conference, and it includes some good reasons to think that Morton Smith could not have forged the Secret Gospel of Mark, as well as reasons to think that he didn’t, including the fact that he spent six years transcribing, translating, and developing his interpretation of the manuscript, which would be strange if he wrote it. Click through for further details. Read more

HT Jesus Needs New PR Read more

HT Brad Matthies Read more

Thanks to Jim Getz for drawing to my attention something that I must have missed when it appeared on AWOL: The Virtual Magic Bowl Archive. It is a site for a project aimed at bringing not only digital images of the bowls (hopefully including Mandaic ones!), but also scholars working on these bowls, together into a virtual collaborative space. They also have the coolest logo ever, mimicking the spiral writing characteristic of the magic bowls. One publicly-accessible result already connected with... Read more

Ken Schenck has a post up that provides today’s quote of the day. It begins with the same theme as David Ker’s book: The Bible Wasn’t Written To You. But then Ken goes on to say something more that even those who get this first point can overlook: The individual books of the Bible themselves do not have the same audiences. That is, the “Y-O-U” of each book is often different from each other. It is a simple point, and... Read more

Via several different blogs as well as e-mail, an appeal went out today for contributions to the Ancient World Open Bibliographies Project. Click through to learn more. Read more

Those who find the perspectives of Michael Dowd and Connie Barlow helpful in thinking about matters of religion and science may be interested in their next free online seminar, called “Evolutionize Your Life.” Read more

All of the signs below are from the site Passive-Aggressive Notes, which was drawn to my attention by my colleague and fellow coffee-drinker Brad Matthies. If you put one up in your workplace, let me know! Read more