Thanks to Daniel Florien for pointing out legislation in Arizona, HB 2582. Although it is aimed primarily at Sharia Law, it mentions karma as among those sectarian laws that are prohibited from being enacted by courts in Arizona if the new legislation passes. Apparently Arizona lawmakers believe that they can free Arizona courts (and perhaps also those under their jurisdiction) from something that south Indian tradition views as simply a fundamental law of nature, to which even gods are subject. If they can... Read more

Apocryphicity points to an article by Allan J. Pantuck in Biblical Archaeology Review defending the authenticity of the Secret Gospel of Mark. Remnant of Giants and AWOL point out that the Liddel-Scott-Jones Greek Lexicon is available online. Joel Watts offers scriptural proof (from Jeremiah 31:35-36) that God would not break the laws of physics in creating – effectively disproving young-earth creationism from the Bible. Hurray! Theomusings in SoCal follows in the footsteps of Rachel Held Evans (who is also mentioned at... Read more

The blog Access to Mideast and Islamic Sources linked today to Oral Tradition, a journal about the subject that provides the name for the journal. I clicked through to see if anything was new, and discovered that alongside the articles from the last issue, which focused on Biblical studies for the most part, they have added “eCompanion” buttons which open up video related to the articles in question, with presentations by the authors given at the conference “Orality and Literacy” which took... Read more

Daniel Kirk offers criticism of the sexism and other conservative tendencies in the LOLCat Bible translation, while Matthew Crowe thinks that its rendering of the Epistle “to teh church in Glacier” is awesome. I wish I spoke LOLcat fluently enough to write this post in the appropriate dialect. Read more

Today in my “Heresy” class the reading consisted of excerpts from the Mandaean Book of John and Ginza Rba, passages that relate to figures like John the Baptist, Jesus and Miriai. One name mentioned in the Book of John is rendered by Edmondo Lupieri as “Zatan the Column.” Lupieri suggests in a footnote that “Zatan is Satan.” The character in question is an ordinary human being, but a Mandaean author might well delight in the irony of having a character... Read more

I had this forwarded to me by a colleague and thought I should share it: Call for Research Articles are needed for Academic Exchange Quarterly Featured Editors: Alys Jordan and Matt Buckley We are looking for Research Manuscripts which are between 2000-5000 words that address some of the following questions: 1. What are the best methods for successful instruction in a virtual environment? 2. What are the most effective instruction practices, methods, and strategies for this environment? 3. What instructional... Read more

Profhacker today has an article on going paperless at conferences – both as a presenter and an attendee. Read more

The Biblical Studies Carnival is coming. Submit your entries soon! In an update to their Valentine’s Day competition, Eisenbrauns has posted a video of a performance of אשה יפה (“Pretty Woman” in Hebrew). You can listen to it while you read the rest of this post… Richard Hall quotes Jeremy Young on whether questioning is unbelief.Rachel Held Evans asks pastors to tell the truth (HT Joel Watts).Stephen Tomkins talks about the origins of Biblical literalism (HT Chuck Grantham and Joel Watts).Timothy Beal explains... Read more

Michael Zimmerman has two new pieces on his Huffington Post blog. The first is part four in his series “Profiles in Evolutionary Courage” – in this case, focusing on Zack Kopplin, the Louisiana high school student who has started a grass roots campaign to defend science education in his state and overturn a law aimed at giving pseudoscience a foot in the door. The second is about good and bad news related to creationism in Texas. Read more