This semester, students in my course on the Book of Revelation had as one of their assignments to evaluate a web site and post their evaluation on a blog set up for this purpose. I’ll be reading their posts over the coming days, but I wanted to share a link to the blog so that you can do so as well. Your comments will be welcome, both for my benefit as I seek to evaluate not only what students produced,... Read more

Although discussions of digital materials and copyright have featured on this blog, I had to share this conference about copyright not so much because of that interest, but because of the Star Trek theme. The conference is being called: Digital Trek 2: The Wrath of ©han It is due to be held at Ball State University on April 20th, 2011.  You can download a pdf flyer with enhanced Star Trek geekiness from the conference web site. Read more

The view from the Marriott. Has anyone else been struck by the short-sightedness of having the SBL Twitter hash tag use only the last two digits of the year? This is just Y2K waiting to happen all over again! Imagine the confusion there will be at the 2110 annual meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature (provisionally scheduled to be held at the Marriott Moonbase Lunar Earthrise Hotel and Conference Center) when they discover that new tweets are mixed in... Read more

The blog Biblical Studies and Technological Tools has shared notes on the session about blogging and online publication from the Society of Biblical Literature 2010 annual meeting. Read more

Larry Hurtado has posted some brief remarks clarifying some points about his understanding of Jesus-devotion in early Christianity. But the best quote is perhaps not related specifically to that topic, but to how his blog readers and commenters approach it: Those who can’t be bothered to read books and articles and who insist on engaging complex matters simply in frenzied blog-comments will find me and the issues frustrating. No apologies. They’ll either have to move on in the blogosphere or... Read more

It isn’t every day that you encounter the word “eschatological” (or the word “taxonomy” for that matter) outside of academic journals and books. But it is part of the title of a poster that appeared today at IO9: An interesting question is to ask where you think the eschatology of various Biblical writings belongs within this taxonomy. Just another point of intersection between the Bible and science fiction! Read more

James Kidder explains the predictive accuracy of evolutionary theory in a new post at CFSI. Read more

NASA is going to be holding a press conference on December 2nd, and the line-up of panelists has some speculating that they will be announcing that they have discovered life elsewhere than on Earth (or at least from elsewhere). The NASA press release simply says that it relates to an “astrobiology discovery” and that it will “discuss an astrobiology finding that will impact the search for evidence of extraterrestrial life.” I’m sure we’ll all be eagerly awaiting the announcement –... Read more

I overheard a conversation in which a colleague wished someone a belated happy Thanksgiving, and in reply that person wished my colleague a “Happy Cyber Monday.” I didn’t spot any spectacular deals that I can boast of, but maybe you’ll be more lucky. Here’s an Amazon widget for your convenience. Just because I didn’t find anything myself doesn’t mean I can’t benefit from you clicking through via my blog!  🙂 http://ws.amazon.com/widgets/q?ServiceVersion=20070822&MarketPlace=US&ID=V20070822%2FUS%2Fjamefmcgrshom-20%2F8009%2F4111a507-21cd-4672-b80d-6829e7c8cd68&Operation=GetDisplayTemplate Amazon.com Widgets Read more

Shouldn’t this T-shirt say “Trust me, I’m The Doctor”? Next year will mark the reunification (of sorts) of the Society of Biblical Literature and American Academy of Religion annual meetings. They will be simultaneous and in close proximity, if not strictly speaking “one conference.” Nevertheless, one of the areas that overlaps the two organizations’ domains is sci-fi, and the use of Biblical and religious motifs and material in recent science fiction. I wonder how many people would be interested in... Read more