Research | Writing | Digital Humanities | Biblical Studies

Get Weekly Updates

Category Archives: Misc.

Treasures of the British Library (and British Museum)

Treasures of the British Library (and British Museum)

Yesterday my family and I took a day trip to London. One of our goals was to spend some time in the British Museum, esp. to view the BM exhibition, Faith after the Pharaohs (£10), and the British Library, esp. to view the free Treasures of the British Library exhibition.

The BM’s Faith after the Pharaohs featured a number of interesting items, and for this NT nerd, I especially enjoyed fragments of the Gospel of Thomas and the Gospel of Mary (respectively), Codex Sinaiticus, an early copy of the Nicene Creed, and a number of magical papyri and gems. Continue Reading

What You Publish Online Is NOT Forever

What You Publish Online Is NOT Forever

A myth is often repeated that what one publishes on the web is permanent. But like any medium, it is anything but permanent. (It would be fun to go just 20 years into the future and see what we have). Digital media are especially susceptible to corruption and deletion. Sometime in 2005-06, I started blogging… Continue Reading

Earliest Draft of King James Bible ‘Discovered’

Earliest Draft of King James Bible ‘Discovered’

Jeffrey Alan Miller, assistant professor of English at Montclair State University, was trying to determine what Bible translation translator Samuel Ward was using in one of Ward’s early 17th century notebooks. Soon Miller realised the notebook, previously described as “verse-by-verse biblical commentary” was actually part of Ward’s work as one of many KJV translators. Miller summarises his research in… Continue Reading

Data Privacy – An option besides "Delete All"?

Data Privacy – An option besides "Delete All"?

With so much our data ‘out there’ or accessible to someone/thing ‘out there’, are we left to simply ‘delete all’ or shrug our shoulders? The following article by Harvard’s Jonathan Zittrain suggests that using encryption technology, one could ‘seal’ data until a specified time, securing it even from subpenas, etc., with technology that secures crypto-currency… Continue Reading

"Journalism is Twerking?" NMS 16.4

The analogy is crude but apt, and I think other institutions are guilty, too: The Online Oxford Dictionary (2013) defines “twerk” as an informal verb that means to “dance to popular music in a sexually provocative manner involving thrusting hip movements and a low, squatting stance.” The journalistic field, threatened by its shrinking economic capital,… Continue Reading

Getting Back Slowly

My good intentions to get back to “regularly scheduled programming” here at the blog were not realized as my family has dealt with some medical issues in our (now) six-week-old son. Fortunately these difficulties are not too serious and can ultimately be corrected. So let me revise my previous forecast and say I’ll be getting… Continue Reading

What We Don't Know Is in Our Libraries

What We Don't Know Is in Our Libraries

These are fun stories: In January, nine papyri documents almost 2,000 years old were discovered by a student in the Luther College library archives, where they had remained hidden in a cardboard box for decades. Luther sophomore Brittany Anderson was conducting a routine inventory of the papers of the late Orlando W. Qualley, longtime professor… Continue Reading

Using Logos in Biblical Studies Research

Using Logos in Biblical Studies Research

As mentioned previously, I wanted to share a bit about how I use Logos in my research. Even though the program is able to do a number of ancient language searches/functions, I generally save those for Accordance which I find superior in that regard. Instead, I use Logos primarily for reading various reference resources (including… Continue Reading

Gospel of Jesus' Wife to be Published in Next HTR

Gospel of Jesus' Wife to be Published in Next HTR

This news has just arrived in my rss reader via Brice Jones’ blog, though the actually post link doesn’t appear to be working. Jones states: I learned through an e-mail from Prof. Louis Painchaud of Laval that the Coptic “Gospel of Jesus’ Wife” will be published in the next issue of the Harvard Theological Review.… Continue Reading