Category Archives: Teaching & Learning

HBRW WTHT VWLS (Hebrew Without Vowels)

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When I am teaching about the Hebrew Bible, the fact that Hebrew was originally unpointed often comes up. And at that point I will provide some sort of example with English, such as the title to this post: HBRW WTHT VWLS.

Well, Mississippi Fred MacDowell (that’s a great name!) over at English Hebraica has an interesting post entitled, “Ravens and Arabians: Hebrew with and without points in English,” in which he provides an example where the English and Hebrew actually coincide; here’s an excerpt:

This interesting book, The Parchments of the Faith by George Edmands Merrill published in 1894 by the American Baptist Publication Society, does the best job I’ve ever seen of it because it combined words in English as they would be in Hebrew (“and the ravens” are three words in English, but just one, וה×?רבי×?, in Hebrew–“nd th rvns” less accurately shows what Hebrew is like than “ndthrvns”). In addition, the vowel letters are formatted the way nekkudot are, dotting the consonants.

This is a great example; take a gander at it.


Student Evaluation Feedback

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Now that final grades have been submitted, I received a copy of my student evaluations (typed and collated so I don’t know who they are from). The comments were typical (I’m great, they loved the classes, etc. :-)), though this one comment stood out:

Tyler is a great humorous teddy bear of Biblical knowledge. He is filled with joy, laughter, and Hebrew.

I’ve never had it put quite that way before!


Marking Done – Grades Submitted – Need Sleep

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Ah, nothing like the end of semester marking push to put someone in the mood for Christmas! Be that as it may, I am now finished (in more ways than one!). Marking is done; grades have been submitted. I am actually ahead of the game this semester since final grades are not due until this upcoming Friday. This is quite the accomplishment for me since I am usually one of the last professors to hand in grades.

Now I must turn my attention to a number of other important tasks before the next semester begins, including a number of blog posts that are needing some attention in my drafts folder.


God in the Academy

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Inside Higher Ed recently reported on the findings of a survey regarding the religiosity of college and university professors in the United States. The study was conducted by by two sociologists, Neil Gross of Harvard University and Solon Simmons of George Mason University, and was for a presentation sponsored by the Social Science Research Council.

Here are some excerpts from the Higher Ed article:

Listen to many critics of higher education, and you would think that faith had been long ago banished from the quad — or at least all those quads not at places like Notre Dame or Liberty or Yeshiva.

It turns out though, that there are plenty of believers on college faculties. Professors may be more skeptical of God and religion than Americans on average, but academic views and practices on religion are diverse, believers outnumber atheists and agnostics, and plenty of professors can be found regularly attending religious services.

….

On the question of belief in God, the study notes the “common perception� that professors are atheists and suggests that this view is simply not true. The following statistics show how professors aligned themselves:

Professors and Belief in God

Positions of Belief % of Professors
I don’t believe in God. 10.0%
I don’t know whether there is a God and I don’t believe there is any way to find out. 13.4%
I don’t believe in a personal God, but I do believe in a Higher Power of some kind. 19.6%
I find myself believing in God some of the time, but not at others. 4.4%
While I have my doubts, I feel that I do believe in God. 16.9%
I know God really exists and I have no doubts about it. 35.7%

While the study found no sector of higher education without believers, there are significant differences by type of institution and discipline. Faculty members at religious colleges made up about 14 percent of the sample in the survey and they were more likely to believe in God. While 52 percent of professors in non-religiously affiliated colleges believe in God either despite doubts or without doubt, 69 percent of those at religious colleges feel that way. Professors are most likely to be atheists or agnostics at elite doctoral institutions (37 percent) and less likely to be non-believers at community colleges (15 percent).In terms of disciplines, professors in psychology and biology are the least likely to believe in God (about 61 percent in each field are atheists or agnostics), with mechanical engineering not far behind at 50 percent. Professors most likely to say that they have no doubt that God exists are in accounting (63 percent), elementary education (57 percent), finance (49 percent), marketing (47 percent) and nursing (44 percent).

The survey found a “surprisingly high� proportion — 19 percent — of the professoriate that identifies as “born-again Christian,� and they are not restricted to religious colleges. While very few professors (about 1 percent) have this identity at elite doctoral institutions, the share at secular institutions over all is 17 percent.

This is quite interesting. I imagine that the results would be a bit different for Canada, with a less belief — especially in the major public universities as compared to private institutions.

(HT Targuman)