The first-ever “GodBlog” conference will be held at Biola University on October 13, 2005.

The conference will feature some blogosphere heavyweights including syndicated talk show host Hugh Hewitt, author of Blog: Understanding the Information Reformation that’s Changing Your World, whose personal blog draws more than 40,000 viewers per day. According to promotional material, GodBlogCon is designed to mobilize the Christian blogging community and to provide opportunities for Christian bloggers to think strategically about their role within the religious and political blogospheres.

Sounds interesting, though I would personally rather get together with other bibliobloggers during SBL if I had the choice. Unfortuantly, I will not be at SBL this year 🙁

Source: Newswise

I must of missed this discovery due to how busy I was starting a new semester and everything. It appears that another new Dead Sea Scroll was recently discovered and it puts an end to the spurious claims of The Da Vince Code. I think it’s great that Brown’s book has now been debunked once and for all!

Here is an except of the article:

Translators in Jerusalem have just finished work on another of the Dead Sea Scrolls. This one, known as the Gospel of Peter, covers the time period after the crucifixion and proves many of the allegations of Dan Brown’s Da Vinci Code to be false.

I have updated my database based on the Hebrew vocabulary of Bonnie Pedrotti Kittel, Victoria Hoffer, and Rebecca Abts Wright, Biblical Hebrew: Text and Workbook, Second Edition (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2005; Buy from Amazon.ca | Buy from Amazon.com).

While the actual vocabulary has not changed much with the second edition, there are significant changes in how the vocabulary is presented and arranged. The entries for each word are expanded to include various examples of inflected forms (e.g., nouns in construct or with suffixes; verbs in various stems and forms, etc.). In order to facilitate memorization, the words (when appropriate) are now grouped according to their (supposed) etymological root. Thus, for example, עָלָה “go up,” עֹלָה “burnt offering,” עַל “on, upon,” and מַעַל “above” are grouped together. While this is a good move, it also creates a numbering nightmare since cognate terms are all given the same number (in the above example, the words receive the numbers 8, 8a, 8b, and 8c). While it is an improvement on the first edition, the new vocabulary has a number of errors and questionable inclusions, as well as some cases where the supposed roots are debatable.

The database includes all of the vocabulary from the second edition of Kittel, as well as a selection of frequent proper names and places. There are two databases available. The only difference between them is how the words are grouped.

• Vocabulary Organized by Lessons. This database has the words grouped according to when they are assigned in the lessons in Kittel. The disadvantage of this arrangement is that students will be responsible for anywhere from twenty-four to five words depending on the lesson. It also extends the memorizing of vocabulary throughout the entire textbook. (Lesson 53 is the extra section with proper names and places.)
• Vocabulary Organized by 20s. Rather than grouping words according to the lessons from Kittel, this database uses the chapter tags to organize the words into groups of twenty words. This allows students to build vocabulary at a constant rate throughout the year and also (depending on how you assign the vocabulary) allows you to finish it earlier in the year allowing more time for review.

The database works with Teknia Flashworks, a cross-platform vocabulary drilling program in which each word in the chosen database is tagged for type (noun, verb, etc.), chapter, and frequency in the biblical text. You may sort the words, for example, by chapter or randomly mix them for review. The software was developed by Teknia Software and William D. Mounce, the author of Basics of Biblical Greek and many other Biblical Greek resources.

The database is available in Windows, Mac OS X and Classic (OS 8.2 through 9.2). For more information and to download the database and program, see my “Resources for Kittel’s Biblical Hebrew: Text and Workbook” Page. (For those interested, I have also updated my “Introductory Hebrew Grammars” page)

The latest Review of Biblical Literature is now available. It includes a decent review of Ingrid Hjelm’s Jerusalem’s Rise to Sovereignty: Zion and Gerizim in Competition by biblioblogger Jim West. That Jim enjoyed the work is apparent from his first sentence, though I have to balk at one of his concluding lines: “Those who would date the Hebrew Bible to the Hasmonean era now have a significant weapon in hand with which to wage the ongoing battle over biblical historiography.” I personally find it quite difficult to conceive of the Hebrew Bible undergoing major revision during the Hasmonean era (134-63 BCE) — let alone being written during that period. This is especially considering that most of it was already translated into Greek by that time! (See my “Towards the Date for the Old Greek Psalter,” in R. Hiebert, C. Cox, and P. Gentry (eds.), The Old Greek Psalter: Studies in Honour of Albert Pietersma [JSOTSup 332; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2001] 248-276).

Also noteworthy in this issue are two reviews of Walter Brueggemann’s Worship in Ancient Israel: An Essential Guide and two reviews of George J. Brooke’s excellent work, The Dead Sea Scrolls and the New Testament.

The reviews are as follows:

• Walter Brueggemann, Worship in Ancient Israel: An Essential Guide. Reviewed by Thomas Kraus and Baruch A. Levine
• Sarah J. Dille, Mixing Metaphors: God as Mother and Father in Deutro-Isaiah. Reviewed by Marjo Korpel
• Ingrid Hjelm, Jerusalem’s Rise to Sovereignty: Zion and Gerizim in Competition. Reviewed by James West
• Jeremy Corley and Vincent Skemp, eds., Intertextual Studies in Ben Sira and Tobit. Reviewed by Thierry Legrand
• George J. Brooke, The Dead Sea Scrolls and the New Testament. Reviewed by Joerg Frey and Thomas Kraus

Reuters has an odd story about a stray dog who has become the newest acolyte at a temple on an outlying South Korea island. The dog, Hama, has learned to sit, stay and perform Buddhist prayer rituals alongside the monks.

Hmmm… Perhaps someone could knit Hama a nice little orange robe.

I came accross this très amusing cartoon about blogging:

From the New Yorker via Brad.Boydston.us.

As chair of the Religion & Theology Department at Taylor University College, I would like to invite everyone to our fourth annual Taylor Public Lecture Series on Religion & Culture. These lectures will touch on various topics where popular culture and religion intersect.

This fall we have an exciting line-up of speakers and topics. I am very pleased to announce that Dr. Merold Westphal, Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at Fordham University in New York, will be presenting on the relationship between faith and postmodernism. Dr. Westphal has written numerous books and articles and is one of the leading philosophers of religion North America. In addition, we have lectures scheduled on Dan Brown’s best-selling and controversial book The Da Vinci Code, as well as C.S. Lewis’s classic children’s book (and soon to be released film), The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. The series begins at the end of September with Jim Van Yperen’s lecture on the importance of character and community for leaders. Jim Van Yperen, a nationally known leadership consultant, is founder and president of Metanoia Ministries. Each lecture will include time for discussion and interaction. Consistent with the aims of our institution, we will explore these topics from a distinctively Christian perspective.

The four lectures are:

• Lecture 1: “Embodying Reconciliation: How the Church Can become a Redemptive Community,” by Jim Van Yperen, President of Metanoia Ministries (Thursday, September 29, 7:30-9:00 pm). This lecture will address why all church conflict is about leadership; all leadership is about character and all character is about community. If the church is to be the Gospel in a conflicted world, leaders and members must make reconciliation a way of life.
• Lecture 2: “Responding to The Da Vinci Code: Mary Magdalene in History and Canon” by Dr. Jo-Ann Badley, Assistant Professor of Biblical Studies, Newman Theological College, Edmonton (Thursday, October 13, 7:30-9:00 pm).The Da Vinci Code has been on the best-seller list for months because it is a fascinating book Brown bases his plot on the neglect of Mary Magdalene in the church. How much fact is there in the fascinating? This lecture will review Brown’s book and explore Mary Magdalene’s role in scripture and the early church.
• Lecture 3: “Religious Uses of Secular Postmodernism: Toward a Postmodern Christian Faith” by Dr. Merold Westphal, Distinguished Professor of Philosophy, Fordham University, New York (Thursday, October 27, 7:30-9:00 pm). Many Christians see postmodernism as a threat to their faith. This lecture will take a closer look at this perceived threat and uncover how many aspects of secular postmodernism are actually useful in proclaiming the Christian faith.
• Lecture 4: “Past Watchful Dragons: Christianity in C.S. Lewis’s The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe” by Dr. Martin Friedrich, Associate Professor of English, Taylor University College (Thursday, November 10, 7:30-9:00 pm). C.S. Lewis once said that his task as a writer was to get past the “watchful dragons” of his readers. This presentation will examine the literary techniques that Lewis employed to get past those watchful dragons and to appeal to as broad an audience as possible.

All lectures are free and will be held in Stencel Hall, in the Taylor Seminary Building, 11525-23 Avenue (access from the West parking lot off 23 Avenue). For more information, including promotional materials, please go here or contact me at your convenience.

If you are in the Edmonton area, please feel free to come to these free public lectures. If you are not in the area, don’t fret. The lectures will be available online in MP3 format.

For MP3s of previous lectures you can check out the archive here.

Volume X (Summer 2005) of the Journal of Religion and Popular Culture is online. The volume has a number of interesting articles, including articles on South Park, Dr. Phil, as well as the portrayal of Islam in popular culture. Check it out.

There are also a number of book reviews. Especially worth noting is the review of Bryan Stone’s Faith and Film: Theological Themes at the Cinema by someone called Tyler F. Williams.

In his most recent installment of his must-read “NT Apocrypha” series, Phil Harland explores Jesus’ attitude toward children. Most are familiar with Jesus’ positive attitude toward children presented in the synoptics in Mark 10:13-16, Matthew 19:13-15, and Luke 18:15-17 (“Let the little children come…”).

In contrast to this kid-friendly Jesus, Phil brings up a passage from the Acts of Thomas in which the risen Jesus provides some advice for the newly married. Jesus tells a newly married couple to avoid “filthy intercourse” so that you won’t “be weighed down by cares… for children, the end of which is destruction.”

Since I have three kids (and I enjoyed the process of contributing to their conception), I guess I’ll stick with the biblical Jesus!