Category: Technology

Messianic Ethics?

John Howard Yoder’s still influential The Politics of Jesus
continues to evoke responses from a variety of angles within the large umbrella of “religious studies.”

While I’m most familiar with the historical responses to Yoder, here is an interesting piece on the possible ethical implications of Yoder’s work on politics and early followers of Jesus (and Jesus himself):

(Thanks to my advisor/teacher/mentor/friend/provacateur Prof Goodman for sending over…)

Is a Messianic Ethic Possible: Recent Work By and About John Howard Yoder http://documents.scribd.com/ScribdViewer.swf?document_id=4617204&access_key=key-2a430n4jkgsokb4zegf3&page=1&version=1&viewMode=

Is a Messianic Ethic Possible: Recent Work By and About John Howard Yoder

Southern Baptists Show Us the Door

The Baptist State Convention is this week and it looks like the Southern Baptists have moved to put up more walls along with border with us Cooperative Baptists.

As a member of the CBF, I don’t have a problem with not finding approval from my more conservative Baptist kinfolk, but it is a shame that we can’t find common ground over the cacophony of politics.

I’m sure Jesus is proud.

NC So. Baptists cut ties with Coop. Baptist Fellowship | CITIZEN-TIMES.com | Asheville Citizen-Times: “The Greensboro News & Record reports that delegates to the 2008 Baptist State Convention in Greensboro have voted to remove the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship from a list of giving options for mission work.

The Cooperative Baptist Fellowship was established as an alternative to the conservative Southern Baptist Convention. The group does not support the belief that the Bible is entirely without error, and the cooperative is willing to partner with churches that put gays into leadership roles.

Matt Williamson, pastor of Oak Forest Baptist Church in Fletcher, offered the proposal and said liberal theology will lead to liberal morality.

Remind me to not go to Oak Forest since I’ll infect them with my “liberal morality.”

Early Gospel of John Fragment Could Be Yours!

… for the low low price of 200,000-300,000 GBP.

Early third century, folks. That’s early. And beyond important for the history of Christianity and understanding how the fourth gospel got to be in its “final” state and what that process might have included (and excluded).

If only I were rich, this would be a part of the Wofford collection…

Written almost certainly in Alexandria, and used in the important early Christian community at Oxyrhynchus, in the desert west of the Nile about 120 miles from Cairo, partly covered now by the modern village of Behnesa. Ancient Oxyrhynchus was principally discovered Bernard Grenfell (1869-1926) and Arthur Hunt (1871-1934), both of Queen’s College, Oxford, who devoted their lives to excavating it. The site furnished many of the finest and most precious records of early Christianity ever found, including the sensational ‘Sayings of Jesus’ (later known as the ‘Gospel of Thomas’), as well as notable classical texts, including Pindar and Menander. The present fragment was recovered by Grenfell and Hunt on 28 September 1922, and it was classified as P. Oxy. 1780. Most of the Oxyrhynchus finds are now in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, and the British Museum. Some specimen pieces, however, were transferred by Oxford University to appropriate theological seminaries and colleges elsewhere, including the present piece which had been given by 1924 to the Baptist college, Crozer Theological Seminary, founded near Chester, Pennsylvania, in 1865. It was later the alma mater of Martin Luther King. In 1980 Crozer merged with the ecumenical Colgate Theological Seminary in Rochester, New York. The present manuscript was Inv. 8864 in the Ambrose Swasey Library in the combined Colgate Rochester Crozer Divinity School, until their sale in our New York rooms, 20 June 2003, lot 97, $400,000, bought then by the present owner for what is still by far the highest price ever paid at public sale for any early Christian manuscript. Since 2004 it has toured American museums in the exhibitions Dead Sea Scrolls to the Forbidden Book and Ink and Blood, where it has been seen by hundred of thousands of people. The bibliography below takes no account of the manuscript’s truly enormous presence now on Christian websites, DVDs and published videos.

GOSPEL OF JOHN, IN GREEK, LARGE FRAGMENT FROM A MANUSCRIPT CODEX ON PAPYRUS

Roman History and Google Earth

Amazing times we live in, folks.

And simply amazing for those of us called to teach…

Google LatLong: Roman history comes to life in Google Earth: “Were you someone who struggled to stay awake in ancient history class? If so, perhaps this was due to those uninspiring ‘artist renditions’ in your textbook. Reading countless pages that described how a monument, building or city may have appeared at the time can be pretty difficult to imagine.

Well, today we introduced a new approach to learning about ancient history: the ability to go back in time and explore Rome as it existed in 320 AD — in 3D!”

Amazing.

I love Google and the interwebs.

Tonight’s the Night


I listened to Neil Young’s Tonight’s the Night again last night. Amazing.

A comment on Amazon likens the album to Robert Johnson’s rawness and the Wikipedia article hints at the personal nature of the artistry behind the songs:

Tonight’s the Night (album) – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: “Included with the vinyl release of Tonight’s the Night was a seemingly strange insert that added to Neil Young’s claim that Tonight’s the Night was the closest he ever came to art. Emphasising the personal nature of the album, the self-penned liner notes contained an apology: ‘I’m sorry. You don’t know these people. This means nothing to you.’ The original inserts/liner notes included in the vinyl release were quite cryptic in their conveyance.

On the front of the insert is a letter to the mysterious ‘Waterface’ character, no explanation is given to their identity, although in Shakey: Neil Young’s Biography by Jimmy McDonough, Young says that ‘Waterface is the person writing the letter. When I read the letter, I’m Waterface. It’s just a stupid thing – a suicide note without the suicide.'”

The album has actually crept into my “Top 5” list which goes something like (in no particular order):

– Tonight’s the Night: Neil Young

– Heartbreaker: Ryan Adams (even if it is named after a Mariah Carey song.)

– The Beatles (The White Album): The Beatles (sure, Abbey Road is a/the masterpiece, but I’ve always loved the chaotic underbelly of the Beatles…for me, this is pure music perfection.)

– Highway 61 Revisited: Bob Dylan (if you haven’t listened to this album all the way through with headphones on, you haven’t lived.)

– Nevermind: Nirvana (the album that made me like music and changed my life and my generation.)

It’s difficult to nail down a “Top 5” but it’s really difficult to nail down a Top 10 or a Top 25. We’ll do that another day.

That’s because today, It’s Neil Young’s birthday. So do him and yourself a favor and give “Tonight’s the Night” a listen today (or tonight).