My fellow bibliobloggers have done an exceptional job of covering the “Jesus’ wife papyrus.” It has taken a few weeks but the true import of Karen King’s revelatory Coptic papyrus fragment of slowly coming to light. Jesus has not simply been revealed as having been married, but as comedian of the […]
… and which candidate is more like JC. (BTW there are very real and interesting historical questions about Jesus’ ethnicity that are usually very poorly handled. This story is actually about modern social issues and contemporary politics.) I like the contrast put forward: Less remarked are the differences in how […]
I have long been a fan of Dan Piraro’s odd one-panel comic Bizarro. Our views don’t always jive (although we both like cigars), but I was impressed to see him (or anyone really) so publicly admit to changing their mind about an issue, especially a currently politically hot issue. Last […]
Philip Roth, author of The Human Stain, wanted to correct the Wikipedia entry about his novel. I have written about this before and still find Wikipedia’s approach less than helpful in this regard. When you have actual primary sources, why not use them? Sure, they might lie and authors have been […]
Other resources for the Book of Ruth, including a short commentary, and its Targum can be found by navigating the menu above. Last month [July 2012] I presented my paper on the conversion of Ruth in Targum Ruth. I noted, in passing, that the Targum also explains why the two […]
I have never read as much Spinoza as I feel I should have (and I thought about that again while in Amsterdam). I had a colleague at a previous institution who was a HUGE Spinoza fan. He was also very reformed and, as this piece points out, would portray Spinoza […]
A recurring theme in his teaching was that sound scholarship and religious faith are not incompatible, and he insisted in his own research and in the work of his students on applying the most rigorous standards of intellectual integrity. He also asserted that theology is not a discipline which can […]
No, it is not some new WWE extravaganza (but I know some who would pay to watch it) it is a surprisingly good Chronicle of Higher Education Article on the war that is raging between the so-called “New Atheists” (now with 40% more bile!) and those atheists and scholars who […]
I grew up in a Presbyterian church that is now part of the EPC. I know lots of Methodists. I am an Episcopalian, what some call “Catholic light.” But I don’t get the joke. What does it even mean? “White is the new vanilla?” That makes as much sense. Perhaps […]
I am sharing this job announcement for the Chaiken Family Chair in Jewish Studies at Penn State. I want to say, that in spite of everything that has gone on around Penn State this year it remains a wonderful and fantastic institution. In fact, I would say that of all […]