The Edmonton Journal published a very positive article on Christian university education in which Taylor University College receives a fair bit of attention. While I was interviewed, along with the Academic Vice President of Taylor (Dr. David Williams — no relation), I was not quoted (and I am not bitter, really!). One of our graduates, however, biblioblogger Ken Ristau, was also interviewed and quoted in the article.

Later this week Taylor University College will be hosting Dr. Merold Westphal, Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at Fordham University, New York. On Thursday night (Thursday 27 October 2005 – 7:30 pm) Dr. Westphal will be presenting a free public lecture entitled, “Religious Uses of Secular Postmodernism: Toward a Postmodern Christian 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.

Dr. Westphal has written much on the relationship between postmodernism (broadly defined) and the Christian faith. While many Christians see postmodernism as a threat to the faith, Westphal (rightly) sees in postmodernism many ideas that are compatible with the Christian faith. Moreover, it isn’t as if philosophical modernity has been a friend to the faith, with its emphasis on the autonomy of the human knower and epistomological certitude. In contrast, postmodernism reminds us of the limits of human knowledge and human sinfulness. In some ways, postmodernism’s unintended commentary is on the doctrine of the fall.

Some of Westphal’s works include:

• Overcoming Onto-Theology: Toward a Postmodern Christian Faith. Fordham University Press, 2001. Buy from Amazon.ca | Buy from Amazon.com
• Postmodern Philosophy and Christian Thought. Indiana University Press, 1999. Buy from Amazon.ca | Buy from Amazon.com
• Transcendence and Self-Transcendence: On God and the Soul. Indiana University Press, 2004. Buy from Amazon.ca | Buy from Amazon.com

I will be posting an MP3 of the talk on Taylor’s Public Lecture website.

Matt Page, the Resource Centre Manger at the Open Heaven Church in Loughborough, U.K., has put together an excellent little survey of films based on the biblical book of Genesis. It covers everything from the first silent film based on the book of Genesis (Joseph vendu par ses frères [Joseph Sold by his Brothers], directed by Vincent Lorant-Heilbronn in 1904) to more recent straight-to-video productions.

One film that I was unaware of — and based on Matt’s brief review is well worth a gander — is La Genèse, directed Cheick Oumar Sissoko (1999; Buy from Amazon.ca: VHS or DVD | Buy from Amazon.com: VHS or DVD). According to Matt, Sissoko’s film tells the story of Abraham’s family from an African perspective (it is even filmed in the Bambara language of Mali, spoken by only few million worldwide) and as a result it does a great job portraying the nomadic tribal context in which the biblical story of Jacob and Esau is set. Sounds facinating; I have already put a hold on it from our local library and I’ll post my review as soon as I have viewed it.

For an exhaustive listing of films based on the Hebrew Bible, see my The Old Testament on Film pages.

The New York Times Book section has a review of Robert Pinsky’s book, The Life of David (Nextbook/Schocken, 2005; Buy from Amazon.ca | Buy from Amazon.com).

The book is the first in Schocken’s Jewish Encounters series which will feature popular books on different Jewish themes. Here is an excerpt from William Deresiewicz’s review:

The Life of David grows increasingly strong as it moves from David’s early years to the years of his reign. The evolution from disconnected legends like David’s battle with Goliath to the fuller record of a sitting king allows Pinsky to move from the waters of speculation to the solid ground of interpretation. Pinsky’s reading of David’s mystifyingly disastrous attempt to take a census as the embodiment of everything threatening about his revolutionary transformation of the Jewish people “from a masked, uncataloged, exclusionary, taboo-ridden culture of tribes to a visible, enumerated, inclusive civilization,” is a tour de force of historical imagining.

Most important, Pinsky achieves his stated goal of making David more accessible without making him cease to be alien, as any figure from so remote a culture must always remain. Some might argue that a work of this kind ought not be attempted in the first place, that to embroider the biblical text is false and presumptuous. But what Pinsky does here is squarely within the Midrashic tradition of narrative elaboration, even if his methods and sensibility are unmistakably modern. Whatever may be said of David and his lineage, it is this kind of creative engagement that makes the Bible itself live and endure.

It sounds like it would be a good read.

Loren Rosson III discovered today that his blog is worthless! (I’ve suspected as much for some time! 😉

As it turns out, my blog is also worthless! Bummer… I guess I’ll keep my day job! At least I can console myself that I am not alone in my misery!