Recent articles in Inside Higher Education – focused on the field of modern languages – discuss the subject of open access scholarly publication and open access teaching. I have been wondering whether it would be possible for us to offer languages like Greek and Hebrew at Butler University even when we cannot persuade the administration that it is economically feasible to hire an adjunct to teach a class for the number of students we’d have enrolled, by using lecture materials and other... Read more

A couple of posts about the Tower of Babel story have appeared in the blogosphere recently. Terri discussed telling her children that it is not literally true, while DoOrDoNot shared a humorous story about a child being offered a possible literal interpretation. In the past I’ve mentioned the story briefly, such as in a parody of the use of the story by young-earth creationists to oppose mainstream linguistics, and also mentioned Judy Klitsner’s treatment of the story in her book Subversive Sequels in the... Read more

Daniel McClellan has a post on the Hebrew plural Elohim, in which he explains that it served as an abstract plural, and thus meant something like “the deity.” Jim Linville has an entertaining post featuring the sorts of LOLcats that demanded worship from humans both ancient and modern – and often received it, or at least a tummy rub. Read more

Ari’s blog has some awesome links. He spotted Mark Goodacre’s latest NT Pod, on the question whether Jesus existed, before it even popped up in my feed. I agree with Mark on the useful positive role mythicists can play for New Testament scholars in keeping us honest. And I obviously also agree with Mark’s criticisms of them. My only critical comment is that, given his important point early in the podcast about the fact that it is unreasonable to expect... Read more

David Fitzgerald kindly let me know that he has posted a response to my critical post about his talk at Skepticon. In the spirit of dialogue that he expresses in his post, addressing me directly, I will do the same here. I would like to begin by clarifying that I was not in any sense criticizing you for highlighting scholarship for an audience unfamiliar with it. As you rightly point out, professors do this semester after semester, and if I... Read more

Gnosticism has turned up regularly in science fiction – The Matrix and The Golden Compass providing just a couple of recent examples. It also profoundly influenced the religious views of Philip K. Dick, and in following a link to an interview about the Gospel of Thomas and Secret Book of John with Stevan Davies, I found on the site Aeon Byte Gnostic Radio a podcast about the Gnosticism of Philip K. Dick, and in the interest of allowing all things... Read more

“[R]reading the text as if it was as plain as the nose on your face only gets you that far into the text – to the bare tip of your nose.” — Joel Watts, “Rules for Studying Genesis – Marv Gets It Wrong“ Read more

Dennis Venema tells part one of a tale of three creationists. P. Z. Myers explains how Ken Ham encourages atheism (and gay marriage). Greg Laden explains that what is happening at present is not that unusually large numbers of animals are dying, but unusually large numbers of media outlets are reporting it. On the other hand, a clear sign of the imminent end of the world is that Marcus Borg will be speaking at ETS! 🙂 Paul Harvey compares reading selections from the Constitution... Read more

Here are some links related to evolution, and the interaction of biology and theology, from around the blogosphere: Several blogs quoted Albert Mohler on why he doesn’t accept scientific evidence. Arni Zachariassen responds with a post criticizing Mohler’s theology of creation. Scott Bailey calls it “intellectual bait and switch.” Greg Laden posts on creationist quote-mining of peer-reviewed research. Jesus Creed and the BioLogos blog both have posts on the human fossil record. Phil Plait blogs about the latest from Don... Read more

There was a nice brief article in the Indianapolis Star yesterday about Nichelle Nichols, who played Lt. Uhura on the original Star Trek series. In it she tells of how she was considering leaving the show at the end of the first season, and was persuaded not to by a very famous fan. This is a must-read. Joel Watts and Cheese-Wearing Theology offer contrasting responses to an article entitled “Catholic Propaganda on the Enterprise” which appeared in The Catholic Herald in... Read more