Scott Bailey has chimed in on the subject of the Society of Biblical Literature’s relationship to secular and confessional Biblical studies. Welcome back, Scott! The decisive contribution to the discussion, however, comes via Scot McKnight’s blog. Read more

Doug Chaplin easily attained quote of the day status with his post on Rob Bell and theories of the atonement, which concludes with a Harry Potter quote, “A pity they let the old punishments die. Was a time detention would find you hanging by your thumbs in the dungeons. God, I miss the screaming.” To which Doug adds: “It’s odd how many proponents of a gospel of love end up sounding like Argus Filch in Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s... Read more

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There are so many interesting and useful online materials mentioned today around the blogosphere that I felt I ought to mention them, and gather them together in one post. Via Steve Caruso, I learned that the Arshama Project (based in the Classics Department at Oxford University) has posted online Aramaic lessons and related learning materials. The Canadian Biblical Studies Blog announced research scholarships related to the Dead Sea Scrolls. Ancient World OnLine shared open access materials from the Australian Journal... Read more

Picture by Forget-Yesterday I know some have already begun discussing the earthquake, tsunami and nuclear reactor crises in Japan and asking theological questions. I don’t feel like I have anything to say that would be remotely useful, and that the best we can do is remain silent, give what we can, do what we can, and hope. Events like this do not cry out for explanation so much as for compassion – or perhaps I should say, they only cry out... Read more

There’s been more about Rob Bell and Universalism around the blogosphere, and once again I felt that some of it deserved to be shared and brought together. The title of the post comes from Andrew’s post and is actually the name of a blog he linked to. But it was sparked in conjunction with Hemant Mehta’s paraphrase of what he perceives to be going on around the Christian blogosphere: “Is Rob Bell a heretic? Or worse, a universalist?” Some remember... Read more

Tonight’s episode of V ***SPOILER ALERT if you haven’t watched it yet*** was a season finale that did a lot of interesting things, including some of the plots and machinations that had already been underway. But it did more than that – it killed off an incredible number of familiar characters, and offered some surprising new directions for the show to go in, if it gets renewed for another season. Just as one face from the original series fell to Anna’s... Read more

The latest e-mail bulletin from the American Academy of Religion pointed out that videos from the 2010 Annual Meeting are available online. These include Jonathan Z. Smith, “Reading Religion: A Life Of Scholarship”; Ann Taves’ presidential address ““Religion” in the Humanities and the Humanities in the University”; “Blogging God” about “On Faith” at the Washington Post; and Francisco J. Ayala’s Templeton Lecture, “Darwin’s Gift to Science and Religion.” Read more

There has been a fair bit of discussion of universalism lately, since Rob Bell’s new book was announced. A couple of posts today seemed worth sharing. Richard Beck argues that universalism is more Biblical, and David Congon continues a review/conversation. On a somewhat related note, Thom Stark reposted a piece on theodicy. Read more

I’ve only just gotten caught up on some of last week’s sci-fi. In a stunning turn of events, Fringe last week started fantastically (with a guest appearance by Jorge Garcia, who played Hurley on LOST) and ended weakly, with the katra soul of Spock William Bell taking over Olivia Dunham’s body and making her do a merely OK impression of Leonard Nimoy. Presumably the writers felt like they had to come up with a real challenge for Anna Torv, since... Read more