Thursday, July 16, 2009
Friday, July 10, 2009
Happy 500th Birthday, John
Photo courtesy: Brandon at Sitz im Leben
Update: Earlier, I posted this picture without attribution to the original author over at Sitz im Leben (a blog I have been enjoying very much since I recently discovered it) and have since apologized in the authors comment section for doing so! I love this picture though---there is something hilarious about a photoshopped cake (for some kid named 'Calvin') that is now making the rounds on the blogs because of another Calvin's anniversary. Awesome.
Help me out in my penance and go read his blog. You'll be glad you did.
Thursday, July 9, 2009
Noam Chomsky: "Season of Travesties: Freedom and Democracy in mid-2009"
[Via: Chomsky.info] "June 2009 was marked by a number of significant events, including two elections in the Middle East: in Lebanon, then Iran. The events are significant, and the reactions to them, highly instructive. The election in Lebanon was greeted with euphoria. New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman gushed that he is "a sucker for free and fair elections," so "it warms my heart to watch" what happened in Lebanon in an election that "was indeed free and fair Ñ not like the pretend election you are about to see in Iran, where only candidates approved by the Supreme Leader can run. No, in Lebanon it was the real deal, and the results were fascinating: President Barack Obama defeated President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran." Crucially, "a solid majority of all Lebanese -- Muslims, Christians and Druse -- voted for the March 14 coalition led by Saad Hariri," the US-backed candidate and son of the murdered ex-Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, so that "to the extent that anyone came out of this election with the moral authority to lead the next government, it was the coalition that wants Lebanon to be run by and for the Lebanese -- not for Iran, not for Syria and not for fighting Israel." We must give credit where it is due for this triumph of free elections (and of Washington): "Without George Bush standing up to the Syrians in 2005 -- and forcing them to get out of Lebanon after the Hariri killing -- this free election would not have happened. Mr. Bush helped create the space. Power matters. Mr. Obama helped stir the hope. Words also matter."
Two days later Friedman's views were echoed by Eliott Abrams, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign relations, formerly a high official of the Reagan and Bush I administrations. Under the heading "Lebanon's Triumph, Iran's Travesty," Abrams compared these "twin tests of [US] efforts to spread democracy to the Muslim world." The lesson is clear: "What the United States should be promoting is not elections, but free elections, and the voting in Lebanon passed any realistic test. ... the majority of Lebanese have rejected Hezbollah's claim that it is not a terrorist group but a 'national resistance' ... The Lebanese had a chance to vote against Hezbollah, and took the opportunity."
Reactions were similar throughout the mainstream. There are, however, a few flies in the ointment.
The most prominent of them, apparently unreported in the US, is the actual vote. The Hezbollah-based March 8 coalition won handily, by approximately the same figure as Obama vs. McCain in November 2008, about 54% of the popular vote, according Ministry of Interior figures. Hence by the Friedman-Abrams argument, we should be lamenting Ahmadinejad's defeat of President Obama, and the "moral authority" won by Hezbollah, as "the majority of Lebanese ... took the opportunity" to reject the charges Abrams repeats from Washington propaganda.
Like others, Friedman and Abrams are referring to representatives in Parliament. These numbers are skewed by the confessional voting system, which sharply reduces the seats granted to the largest of the sects, the Shi'ites, who overwhelmingly back Hizbollah and its Amal ally. But as serious analysts have pointed out, the confessional ground rules undermine "free and fair elections" in even more significant ways than this. Assaf Kfoury observes that they leave no space for non-sectarian parties and erect a barrier to introducing socioeconomic policies and other real issues into the electoral system. They also open the door to "massive external interference," low voter turnout, and "vote-rigging and vote-buying," all features of the June election, even more so than before. Thus in Beirut, home of more than half the population, less than a fourth of eligible voters could vote without returning to their usually remote districts of origin. The effect is that migrant workers and the poorer classes are effectively disenfranchised in "a form of extreme gerrymandering, Lebanese style," favoring the privileged and pro-Western classes.
In Iran, the electoral results issued by the Interior Ministry lacked credibility both by the manner in which they were released and by the figures themselves. An enormous popular protest followed, brutally suppressed by the armed forces of the ruling clerics. Perhaps Ahmadinejad might have won a majority if votes had been fairly counted, but it appears that the rulers were unwilling to take that chance. From the streets, correspondent Reese Erlich, who has had considerable experience with popular uprisings and bitter repression in US domains, writes that "It's a genuine Iranian mass movement made up of students, workers, women, and middle class folks" -- and possibly much of the rural population. Eric Hooglund, a respected scholar who has studied rural Iran intensively, dismisses standard speculations about rural support for Ahmadinejad, describing "overwhelming" support for Mousavi in regions he has studied, and outrage over what the large majority there regard as a stolen election.
It is highly unlikely that the protest will damage the clerical-military regime in the short term, but as Erlich observes, it "is sowing the seeds for future struggles."
As in Lebanon, the electoral system itself violates basic rights. Candidates have to be approved by the ruling clerics, who can and do bar policies of which they disapprove. And though repression overall may not be as harsh as in the US-backed dictatorships of the region, it is ugly enough, and in June 2009, very visibly so.
One can argue that Iranian "guided democracy" has structural analogues in the US, where elections are largely bought, and candidates and programs are effectively "vetted" by concentrations of capital. A striking illustration is being played out right now. It is hardly controversial that the disastrous US health system is a high priority for the public, which, for a long time, has favored national health care, an option that has been kept off the agenda by private power. In a limited shift towards the public will, Congress is now debating whether to allow a public option to compete with insurers, a proposal with overwhelming popular support. The opposition, who regard themselves as free market advocates, charge that the proposal would be unfair to the private sector, which will be unable to compete with a more efficient public system. Though a bit odd, the argument is plausible. As economist Dean Baker points out, "We know that private insurers can't compete because we already had this experiment with the Medicare program. When private insurers had to compete on a level playing field with the traditional government-run plan they were almost driven from the market." Savings from a government program would be even greater if, as in other countries, the government were permitted to negotiate prices with pharmaceutical corporations, an option supported by 85% of the population but also not on the agenda. "Unless Congress creates a serious public plan," Baker writes, Americans "can expect to be hit with the largest tax increase in the history of the world -- all of it going into the pockets of the health care industry." That is a likely outcome, once again, in the American form of "guided democracy." And it is hardly the only example.
While our thoughts are turned to elections, we should not forget one recent authentically "free and fair" election in the Middle East region, in Palestine in January 2006, to which the US and its allies at once responded with harsh punishment for the population that voted "the wrong way." The pretexts offered were laughable, and the response caused scarcely a ripple on the flood of commentary on Washington's noble "efforts to spread democracy to the Muslim world," a feat that reveals impressive subordination to authority.
No less impressive is the readiness to agree that Israel is justified in imposing a harsh and destructive siege on Gaza, and attacking it with merciless violence using US equipment and diplomatic support, as it did last winter. There of course is a pretext: "the right to self-defense." The pretext has been almost universally accepted in the West, though Israeli actions are sometimes condemned as "disproportionate." The reaction is remarkable, because the pretext collapses on the most cursory inspection. The issue is the right TO USE FORCE in self-defense, and a state has that right only if it has exhausted peaceful means. In this case, Israel has simply refused to use the peaceful means that have readily available. All of this has been amply discussed elsewhere, and it should be unnecessary to review the simple facts once again.
Once again relying on the impunity it receives as a US client, Israel brought the month of June 2009 to a close by enforcing the siege with a brazen act of hijacking. On June 30, the Israeli navy hijacked the Free Gaza movement boat "Spirit of Humanity" -- in international waters, according to those aboard -- and forced it to the Israeli port of Ashdod. The boat had left from Cyprus, where the cargo was inspected: it consisted of medicines, reconstruction supplies, and toys. The human rights workers aboard included Nobel Laureate Mairead Maguire and former congresswoman Cynthia McKinney, who was sent to Ramleh prison in Israel -- apparently without a word from the Obama administration. The crime scarcely elicited a yawn -- with some justice, one might argue, since Israel has been hijacking boats travelling between Cyprus and Lebanon for decades, kidnapping and sometimes killing passengers or sending them in Israeli prisons without charge where they join thousands of others, in some cases held for many years as hostages. So why even bother to report this latest outrage by a rogue state and its patron, for whom law is a theme for 4th of July speeches and a weapon against enemies?
Israel's hijacking is a far more extreme crime than anything carried out by Somalis driven to piracy by poverty and despair, and destruction of their fishing grounds by robbery and dumping of toxic wastes -- not to speak of the destruction of their economy by a Bush counter-terror operation conceded to have been fraudulent, and a US-backed Ethiopian invasion. The Israeli hijacking is also in violation of a March 1988 international Convention on safety of maritime navigation to which the US is a party, hence required by the Convention to assist in enforcing it. Israel, however, is not a party -- which, of course, in no way mitigates the crime or the obligation to enforce the Convention against violators. Israel's failure to join is particularly interesting, since the Convention was partially inspired by the hijacking of the Achille Lauro in 1985. That crime ranks high in Israel and the West among terrorist atrocities -- unlike Israel's US-backed bombing of Tunis a week earlier, killing 75 people, as usual with no credible pretext, but again tolerated under the grant of impunity for the US and its clients.
Possibly Israel chose not to join the Convention because of its regular practice of hijacking boats in international waters at that time. Also worth investigating in connection with the June 2009 hijacking is that since 2000, after the discovery of apparently substantial reserves of natural gas in Gaza's territorial waters by British Gas, Israel has been steadily forcing Gazan fishing boats towards shore, often violently, ruining an industry vital to Gaza's survival. At the same time, Israel has been entering into negotiations with BG to obtain gas from these sources, thus stealing the meager resources of the population it is mercilessly crushing.
The Western hemisphere also witnessed an election-related crime at the month's end. A military coup in Honduras ousted President Manuel Zelaya and expelled him to Costa Rica. As observed by economist Mark Weisbrot, an experienced analyst of Latin American affairs, the social structure of the coup is "a recurrent story in Latin America," pitting "a reform president who is supported by labor unions and social organizations against a mafia-like, drug-ridden, corrupt political elite who is accustomed to choosing not only the Supreme Court and the Congress, but also the president."
Mainstream commentary described the coup as an unfortunate return to the bad days of decades ago. But that is mistaken. This is the third military coup in the past decade, all conforming to the "recurrent story." The first, in Venezuela in 2002, was supported by the Bush administration, which, however, backed down after sharp Latin American condemnation and restoration of the elected government by a popular uprising. The second, in Haiti in 2004, was carried out by Haiti's traditional torturers, France and the US. The elected President, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, was spirited to Central Africa and kept at a safe distance from Haiti by the master of the hemisphere.
What is novel in the Honduras coup is that the US has not lent it support. Rather, the US joined with the Organization of American States in opposing the coup, though with a more reserved condemnation than others, and with no any action, unlike the neighboring states and much of the rest of Latin America. Alone in the region, the US has not withdrawn its ambassador, as did France, Spain and Italy along with Latin American states.
It was reported that Washington had advance information about a possible coup, and tried to prevent it. It surpasses imagination that Washington did not have close knowledge of what was underway in Honduras, which is highly dependent on US aid, and whose military is armed, trained, and advised by Washington. Military relations have been particularly close since the 1980s, when Honduras was the base for Reagan's terrorist war against Nicaragua.
Whether this will play out as another chapter of the "recurrent story" remains to be seen, and will depend in no small measure on reactions within the United States."
Wednesday, July 8, 2009
The New Testament in Antiquity: A Survey of the New Testament within Its Cultural Contexts
Sitz im Leben does a favor and gives a review of what sounds like a nice new NT introduction.
Gary M. Burge, Lynn H. Cohick, and Gene L. Green, The New Testament in Antiquity: A Survey of the New Testament within Its Cultural Contexts (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2009).
He says:
Read the rest of the review here.
There are a myriad of introductions to the New Testament and each has its own special niche audience or purpose. The volumes by Werner Georg Kümmel, Helmut Koester, or Raymond Brown are written with academic interests in mind and are heavily footnoted. There are a host of mid-level introductions by scholars like Luke Timothy Johnson, Carl Holladay, David deSilva, Carson/Moo, and Achtemeier/Green/Thompson. Bart Ehrman and Stephen L. Harris have both published popular introductions suitable for non-confessional undergraduate courses. Texts by Robert Gundry, Elwell/Yarbrough, and Berding/Williams have been used for evangelical undergraduate courses. This very brief survey is just scratching the surface.The New Testament in Antiquity is most at home in an undergraduate course on the New Testament at an institution with a high view of Scripture. It should also be useful within a number of seminary settings. All three authors—Gary M. Burge, Lynn H. Cohick, and Gene L. Green—teach at Wheaton College. They maintain a high view of Scripture which is evident in this volume: “Thus, it is appropriate for us to refer to the New Testament (as well as the entire Bible) as Scripture, or the divinely inspired Word of God” (16). For this reason, The New Testament in Antiquity would not be a very fitting textbook at a non-confessional institution.
Things NOT to do at a Catholic Mass...
If you are the Prime Minister of Canada...
I'm not scandalized by this as would be my Catholic friends (except for the fact that it scandalizes them). Nonetheless, it reminds of a major 'no-no' that I will not be committing this weekend when I visit a local mass. Which reminds me, there is an excellent book out for people who are visiting faith traditions foreign to them: How to Be a Perfect Stranger: The Essential Religious Etiquette Handbook, 3rd Edition
I highly recommend it; in fact, I'll be using it this weekend.
Quote of the Day: On F.F. Bruce
"F.F. Bruce was, it seems to me, set up in the 1940s as something of a historian knight-in-shinning-armour, called in to do battle with the sceptical dragons. He did this job pretty well. He assumed that relatively dispassionate historical study would provide a reasonable defence, in the scholarly arena, of traditional Christian readings of key aspects of the Bible. He was proved substantially right. His work, and that of those who followed him, made a very important contribution to the change in temper of, in particular, New Testament scholarship between the beginning and end of Bruce's career. Today, a far higher proportion of scholarship is conducisve to traditional Christian beliefs than was the case in the middle of the twentieth century. The most obvious expression of this is the large number of evangelical scholars who are part of the mainstream of international biblical scholarship. Evangelical voices are a regular element of scholarly discourse.
But Bruce was never merely the knight. He saw clearly that, if evangelical biblical scholarship was to develop, evangelicalism needed to change some of its assumptions. From the very beginning, when he was maybe at his most confident about slaying dragons, he realized that open historical study of the Bible was likely to challenge evangeical views on many critical issues. His greatness is that he tackled this head on. He did not do this in order to win a place for evangelicals at the academic table - although he realized that it was a pre-condition of doing so. He did it because he was convinced that a truly evangelical faith must embrace history, not shun it. He was convinced that history would not let evangelicalism down He was convinced of this because he was convinced that Christianity was historically true."
From: "F.F. Bruce and the Development of Evangelical Biblical Scholarship," BJRL 86.3 (2004): 99-123.
Quote of the Day: Walter Brueggemann's "The Liturgy of Abundance"
"Wouldn't it be wonderful if liberal and conservative church people, who love to quarrel with each other, came to a common realization that the real issue confronting us is whether the news of God's abundance can be trusted in the face of the story of scarcity? What we know in the secret recesses of our hearts is that the story of scarcity is a tale of death. And the people of God counter this tale by witnessing to the manna. There is a more excellent bread than crass materialism. It is the bread of life and you don't have to bake it. As we walk into the new millennium, we must decide where our trust is placed."
Walter Brueggemann
"The Liturgy of Abundance"
Op-Ed: David Brook's "In Search of Dignity"
"In Search of Dignity" by David Brooks
When George Washington was a young man, he copied out a list of 110 “Rules of Civility and Decent Behavior in Company and Conversation.” Some of the rules in his list dealt with the niceties of going to a dinner party or meeting somebody on the street.
“Lean not upon anyone,” was one of the rules. “Read no letter, books or papers in company,” was another. “If any one come to speak to you while you are sitting, stand up,” was a third.
But, as the biographer Richard Brookhiser has noted, these rules, which Washington derived from a 16th-century guidebook, were not just etiquette tips. They were designed to improve inner morals by shaping the outward man. Washington took them very seriously. He worked hard to follow them. Throughout his life, he remained acutely conscious of his own rectitude.
In so doing, he turned himself into a new kind of hero. He wasn’t primarily a military hero or a political hero. As the historian Gordon Wood has written, “Washington became a great man and was acclaimed as a classical hero because of the way he conducted himself during times of temptation. It was his moral character that set him off from other men.”
Washington absorbed, and later came to personify what you might call the dignity code. The code was based on the same premise as the nation’s Constitution — that human beings are flawed creatures who live in constant peril of falling into disasters caused by their own passions. Artificial systems have to be created to balance and restrain their desires.
The dignity code commanded its followers to be disinterested — to endeavor to put national interests above personal interests. It commanded its followers to be reticent — to never degrade intimate emotions by parading them in public. It also commanded its followers to be dispassionate — to distrust rashness, zealotry, fury and political enthusiasm.
Remnants of the dignity code lasted for decades. For most of American history, politicians did not publicly campaign for president. It was thought that the act of publicly promoting oneself was ruinously corrupting. For most of American history, memoirists passed over the intimacies of private life. Even in the 19th century, people were appalled that journalists might pollute a wedding by covering it in the press.
Today, Americans still lavishly admire people who are naturally dignified, whether they are in sports (Joe DiMaggio and Tom Landry), entertainment (Lauren Bacall and Tom Hanks) or politics (Ronald Reagan and Martin Luther King Jr.).
But the dignity code itself has been completely obliterated. The rules that guided Washington and generations of people after him are simply gone.
We can all list the causes of its demise. First, there is capitalism. We are all encouraged to become managers of our own brand, to do self-promoting end zone dances to broadcast our own talents. Second, there is the cult of naturalism. We are all encouraged to discard artifice and repression and to instead liberate our own feelings. Third, there is charismatic evangelism with its penchant for public confession. Fourth, there is radical egalitarianism and its hostility to aristocratic manners.
The old dignity code has not survived modern life. The costs of its demise are there for all to see. Every week there are new scandals featuring people who simply do not know how to act. For example, during the first few weeks of summer, three stories have dominated public conversation, and each one exemplifies another branch of indignity.
First, there was Mark Sanford’s press conference. Here was a guy utterly lacking in any sense of reticence, who was given to rambling self-exposure even in his moment of disgrace. Then there was the death of Michael Jackson and the discussion of his life. Here was a guy who was apparently untouched by any pressure to live according to the rules and restraints of adulthood. Then there was Sarah Palin’s press conference. Here was a woman who aspires to a high public role but is unfamiliar with the traits of equipoise and constancy, which are the sources of authority and trust.
In each of these events, one sees people who simply have no social norms to guide them as they try to navigate the currents of their own passions.
Americans still admire dignity. But the word has become unmoored from any larger set of rules or ethical system.
But it’s not right to end on a note of cultural pessimism because there is the fact of President Obama. Whatever policy differences people may have with him, we can all agree that he exemplifies reticence, dispassion and the other traits associated with dignity. The cultural effects of his presidency are not yet clear, but they may surpass his policy impact. He may revitalize the concept of dignity for a new generation and embody a new set of rules for self-mastery.
Update on the James Ossuary
[Via: Wikipedia] The James Ossuary is an ossuary, a limestone box for containing bones, which came to light in Israel in 2002. It is claimed to have been the ossuary of James the Just, the brother of Jesus. Its provenance is unknown. Although the Israel Antiquities Authority assess it as a modern forgery, some scholars maintain its historical authenticity. Its discovery was followed in January 2003 by another contentious archaeological "find", also connected with Oded Golan, the so-called "Jehoash Inscription." A documentary film The Lost Tomb Of Jesus (2007) capitalized on public interest in this find and its controversies." By 2008, in what has been termed "one of the biggest forgery scandals ever in the history of archaeology", it had become known that an Egyptian, Samah Shoukri Ghatas, had confessed to manufacturing the many items for Oded Golan. Golan, a well-known Tel Aviv antiquities collector, who is presently on trial for the forgery.
It would seem that the story continues:
[Via: Ben Witherington] "We are now in the phase of the trial where the defense is presenting its case for exoneration, and the case appears to be impressive. Most recently (see the BAR website article posted June 15th at www.bib-arch.org) the defense has been presenting new scientific evidence from further testing of the patina (ancient residue deposits in the letters of the inscription reading 'Jacov son of Joseph, his brother is Yeshua') that the inscription could not have been produced in the last century, thus exonerating Golan of the charge of forgery of an inscription. The evidence for ancient patina in at least some of the letters of the inscription (in particular in the word Jesus) was admitted by Yuval Goran speaking on behalf of the prosecution, And of course that is the one word in the inscription most likely to have been added by a later forger, but in fact it is genuine.Now what are the implications of both Golan's exoneration (one matter) and the ossuary having a genuine inscription on it (a separate matter)? Well for one thing the IAA is going to have a lot of egg on its face, and will have wasted a lot of money and time in a fruitless and vindictive law suit. But more importantly for historical reasons, the James ossuary will once again provide us with vital extra-Biblical evidence about the holy family, its social status and inter-relationships, and of course the historical existence of James, Joseph, and Jesus. So much for the 'God who doesn't exist' documentary. History and archaeological evidence has a way of making liars of the more extreme skeptics eventually.Of course if the James ossuary is indeed genuine and genuinely a relic of the Holy family, it provides us with an inconvenient truth for some Catholics and Orthodox Christians who believe Jesus had no blood brothers and Mary had no other children than Jesus. But there will be time enough to discuss that more down the road. For now it is sufficient to stress that rumors of the forgery of the inscription on the James ossuary appear to be greatly exaggerated, and the attempts to rebury the ossuary and its important historical information have failed. This is only what we might expect since the occupant of the James box was a firm believer in resurrection, his brother's and in due course, his own. :) As for me, I stand by all that was said in the Brother of Jesus and look forward to further revelations about and testing of the James box."
Or maybe it's not all that interesting, and Ben III just wants to sell books!
Tuesday, July 7, 2009
Church of Christ professors seek life on Mars. No, that's not a punchline.
[Via: Christian Chronicle] A team of Arkansas researchers has been awarded a $1.5 million grant by NASA to develop a system to search for life on Mars. The team includes Harding University professor Dr. Edmond Wilson and assistant professor Dr. Constance Meadors. Wilson and Meadors are members of the Arkansas NASA Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research team, which also includes scientists from University of Arkansas at Little Rock and Arkansas Tech University. The team won for its proposal titled “Mobile Surveying for Atmospheric and Near-Surface Gases of Biological Origin” during a national competition and was among 27 teams NASA selected for funding. Other scientists on the team include Keith Hudson and Gary Anderson, both of UALR, and Charles Wu of ATU. NASA has awarded approximately $19 million to colleges and universities nationwide to conduct research and technology development. In addition, the awards enable faculty development and higher education student support. The selections are part of NASA’s Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research. Twenty-seven proposals out of 50 were chosen through a merit-based, peer-reviewed competition. The grant requires a
one-to-one match of funds. Wilson will be in charge of building and testing the instruments in preparation for field testing. He will also perform scientific tests at local landfills and participate in field science data analysis and reporting for the project. Meadors will develop and maintain the project Web site and assist in instrument testing, field tests and analysis. She will also lead the team’s outreach efforts to local schools and colleges. Several students will be awarded undergraduate fellowships as they train and assist with this project.
Cool finds at Jerusalem's ongoing Mount Zion dig of James Tabor
[From James Tabor's Blog] "I wanted to offer a preliminary update report on the Mt Zion Excavation in Jerusalem after three weeks of digging. The results have been simply astounding, the finds quite spectacular, and the whole area has been transformed. I would dare say that those who have seen the site in past years would hardly recognize it. We owe much to our loyal team of 50 registered participants, averaging 30 per week, who have sacrificed their own money, time, and hard labor to advance this important effort. Given the times, with the pressures of the recession, many excavations have had to either cancel or severely cut back, due to lack of volunteers. UNC Charlotte is the only university presently digging in Jerusalem that offers students and volunteers a field school experience. This unique opportunity, along with our location in Jerusalem, has been a large part of our appeal. Our site offers an opportunity to uncover all periods of habitation of this important city (from modern through Ottoman, Crusader, Arab, Byzantine, and Jewish periods—all the way back to the Iron Age). Further, our precise location, on the slopes of Mt Zion, overlooking the Kidron and Hinnom valleys and the Mt of Olives, was in ancient times precisely at the center of Herodian/2nd Temple Jerusalem in the time of Jesus. And what’s more, we have extraordinarily well preserved ruins from this 2nd Temple period, culminating in the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans in 70 CE." [Read rest of story here]
Has a new fragment of the Codex Sinaiticus been found?
Maybe. Read Tommy's account of an announcement made at the Codex Sinaiticus Conference.
By the way, almost everyone has blogged this already, but the Codex Sinaiticus is now completely digitized and available online.
Fanny Crosby (1820-1915)
[Via: The Resurgence] Fanny Crosby (1820-1915) was an American poet and hymn writer. She became blind shortly after birth, and a year later, her father died. She was raised by her mother and grandmother, and their landlady helped her to memorize Scripture from the Bible. At age 15, she entered the New York School for the Blind. During that time, she learned to play the piano and guitar and to sing. After she married, she wrote hymns to support herself while devoting her life to working with the poor. She wrote over 8,000 hymns, including "Blessed Assurance." The short video above tells her story.
Free Audio: D.A. Carson on Temptation
A sermon series by D.A. Carson
2. The Temptation of Joseph (Genesis 39)
3. The Temptation of Hezekiah
4. The Temptation of Jesus (Matthew 4:1-11)
5. Your Temptation (James 1:2-4, 12-18)
Monday, July 6, 2009
Monday Meander
Hello friends! I've been neglecting Desposyni a bit lately under school pressure, but am now caught up. What I am not caught up on, in terms of this blog, is a nice meta-post of links from around the blogosphere that I've been holding on to:
- The differences between "religion" and the Gospel
- Martin Luther King: Remaining Awake Through a Great Revolution
- Jay Guin: On Spiritual Formation Done Right
- The Case for "Generalist" Scholars in Biblical Scholarship
- Conference: Advance09 Videos
- Free EBook: Pastor Dad
- Have a "learning folder" in your GTD System? I do...
- "Stripped GTD": 3 Things That Make You More Productive
- GTD: The Art of Singletasking
- Noam Chomsky: "On Just War Theory"
- Noam Chomsky, recent audio interview
- John Mark Hicks: Struggle for the Soul of the Churches of Christ (1897-1907)
- Free Audio: Basics Conference 2009
- Recommended Reading: Church Leadership
- A good audio talk on suffering in the Christian life
- Baptismal Rapprochement between Southern Baptists and the Churches of Christ?
- Free Audio: Ed Stetzer on the younger un-churched
- Some good RSS feeds for apologetics audio junkies
- Should we respect Islam?
- A List: The Consequences of Sexual Sin
- Screwed-up world: Pastor urges his flock to bring guns to church...
- John MacArthur: How to enjoy Bible study
Thursday, July 2, 2009
Karl Malden (1912-2009)
Obituary at the New York Times. My favorite line from the Times?
"Mr. Malden was perhaps the ideal Everyman. He realized early on that he lacked the physical attributes of a leading man, but he was, he once said, determined "to be No. 1 in the No. 2 parts I was destined to get."
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
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