It is too soon to try to reboot LOST, but not at all soon to reboot the LOST conference that was originally going to be held in Hawaii, but which proved too inconvenient a destination for too many people. The conference has now been rescheduled and relocated. It will take place in New Orleans, Louisiana at the Marriott Hotel in conjunction with the annual meeting of the Popular Culture Association/American Culture Association in the South, October 6-8, 2011. There are... Read more

Steve Caruso, part of the team working on the Mandaean Book of John translation project, has also been doing other interesting things related to Aramaic, including providing lines for Darius in Civilization V and translating Peter Rabbit into Galilean Aramaic. Anyone interested in Aramaic should keep an eye on his blog – and not only those interested in avoiding (or observing and poking fun at) erroneous tattoos! 🙂 Read more

Daniel McClellan has started blogging through James Dunn’s recent book, Did The First Christians Worship Jesus? Read more

The blog address Debunking Creationism appears to have changed hands – and has witnessed some interesting recent posts, including one on the Biblical texts assuming that the earth is flat, and another on the scientific meaning of “theory” in such phrases as “the theory of evolution.” In related news, Jim Kidder links to a CFSI blog post he wrote on the genetic evidence for evolution. Read more

In 1 Corinthians 11:17-34, Paul addresses issues related to the communal means the Christians in Corinth were practicing. In the process, in 1 Corinthians 11:23-26, Paul cites the following famous material: For I received from the Lord what I also passed on to you: The Lord Jesus, on the night he was betrayed, took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, “This is my body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of me.”... Read more

Last night’s episode of Fringe provided more evidence that Fringe is exploring some of the same themes as LOST. Whether it will do so in more satisfying ways remains to be seen. In this episode, “The Firefly,” the observers are back and playing a prominent role, apparently working on “course correcting” a universe tottering out of alignment. If that is what they are really up to, then I expect to be disappointed by how this plays out. Why, after saying in... Read more

Doug Mangum shares BAR and ASOR archaeology scholarships. And The Talmud Blog shares a call for papers for a conference entitled “Emerging Normativities: Examining the Formation of Proto-Orthodox Christianities and Rabbinic Judaisms 200-800 CE.” Read more

Mark Goodacre has drawn attention to the diappearance of Religion Online, a very useful site with a collection of articles and even complete books related to religion, including Biblical studies. If the site has gone defunct, that is truly a loss for the internet and its users. There are older backups at the Internet Archive, as Mark points out. There many of the really useful items from the site seem to still be accessible, like Norman Perrin’s Rediscovering the Teaching of... Read more

I’ve mentioned before my interest in going to Israel, and it looks like this distant possibility is turning into a more concrete one to begin to be realized in the near future. The idea is for me to go once or twice myself, in preparation for taking a group of students there every couple of years on a short-term study abroad experience for a couple of weeks. So, although I know I’ve asked some vague travel-to-Israel-related questions in the past, I want... Read more

I am grateful to Intervarsity Press for sending me a free review copy of Science, Creation and the Bible: Reconciling Rival Theories of Origins by Richard F. Carlson and Tremper Longman III (Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2010). The book provides a useful overview of key matters of Biblical interpretation, the natural sciences, and other matters relevant to the relationship of religion and science, considered from an Evangelical perspective. The authors are professors in Biblical studies (Old Testament) and the natural sciences... Read more