I learned today that my paper, “The Satirical Use of Christian Material in the Mandaean Book of John,” has been accepted for the Aramaic Studies section at the Society of Biblical Literature 2011 Annual Meeting in San Francisco. I’m excited and honored to be the first to add Mandaic to the list of Aramaic dialects represented in papers presented in that section! Here’s the abstract: The Satirical Use of Christian Material in the Mandaean Book of John Gnosticism is well... Read more

HT Jill Moffett on Facebook Read more

About a week or so ago, my family and I noticed a squirrel behaving oddly. It seemed unable to stand up straight for long periods – as though its sense of balance were affected. It would fall over, and lie on its side while trying to eat seeds it found beneath our bird feeder. Here’s a YouTube video someone else made illustrating what it looks like: A quick search online found a probable explanation: raccoon roundworm. If a squirrel eats... Read more

Dan McClellan has set his sights on documenting the examples of worship directed at figures other than God in Judaism. It will be a welcome contribution to the investigation of monotheism in early Judaism and Christianity! Read more

Thanks to Doug Chaplin for sharing a trailer for the upcoming season of Doctor Who that is viewable in the United States. Some others that are circulating cannot be. http://www.bbc.co.uk/emp/external/player.swf Read more

Blogger has a new feature that allows one to view blogs in a variety of different ways. I’ve noticed that WordPress also seems to have a similar feature, making viewing blogs on an iPad a remarkably different experience. Check out the different ways of seeing Exploring Our Matrix:  Flipcard, Snapshot, Mosaic, Timeslide and (the least interesting) Sidebar. Read more

Michael Patton has posted a cartoon, and once again I find it troubling. The cartoon asks whether believing in a talking snake (as per Genesis 3) is really that different from believing that what started as a single-celled amoeba became a talking human being. Ugh… When I first saw the post on the Parchment and Pen blog, I refrained from commenting. But since Friendly Atheist has chimed in, it seems appropriate to blog about this, so that it is clear... Read more

Chris Brady shared a selection on his blog. Pay him a visit – they are really entertaining/useful! Read more

I’ve been spending some time this evening working on the Mandaean Book of John. In looking up a passage in the important but puzzling text known as Haran Gawaita (which can be found online here and here, and which I am embedding below), Ruha (i.e. the Holy Spirit) is referred to as the wife of Adonai, the Jewish God. Both are viewed negatively in Mandaeism. Given all the recent attention to and interest in Asherah, I thought it worth offering... Read more

Ben Witherington just posted the first post in what looks like it will be a series on his blog about Bart Ehrman’s most recent book, Forged. Since I posted my own review, other bloggers who have reviewed or blogged about the book include The Clever Badger, Otagosh, John Hobbins, and Eric Reitan. Nick Norelli has also posted a review, which ends with the rather strange idea that, in order to appreciate or care about honesty, you have to believe in... Read more