A friend of mine shared an article repeating a familiar narrative, namely the plight of freshly minted PhDs looking for work. Today’s academic degrees cost far more than they used to but are worth far less. So who is cashing in on the difference? Related to this, I have deep reservations about the nearly unqualified encouragement given… Continue Reading
On Tuesday (12 April 2016) Facebook opened up applications to its Instant Articles service to all publishers. I signed up that evening and began the tedious process of setting it up. Continue Reading
The Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus volume 13 issues 2–3 is now available and looks stellar: Continue Reading
Danny O’Brien from the Electronic Frontier Foundation says: There is more encryption in the protected pathway that you have built in (without asking) for Hollywood movies to be presented on your screen without you being able to somehow tap them between the computer and the screen…than any of the encryption that actually protects your communications. It’s… Continue Reading
A classic hermeneutical question is, Where does meaning lie, in the author, text, or reader? One exercise I have given students when I taught hermeneutics courses a few years ago is a play on the old ‘if a tree falls and no one is around to hear it’: If a book falls open in the middle of a… Continue Reading
On January 26, 2016, Vint Cerf of Google and Bruce Cole of the Ethics and Policy Center together gave the The 22nd Adams Lecture at San Diego State University. I’ll offer a brief summary with comments below. Continue Reading
I have just read a really nice article in JSNT by David Horrell and Wei Hsien Wan on the politics of time inherent to the ‘eschatological Christology’ in 1 Peter. In other words, setting up Christ as the centre of time (and the sweep of history) reorients one’s assumed associations of power. Continue Reading
One thing I have enjoyed for the past few years in the UK, both in Durham now and while I was in Edinburgh, is attending seminars and conferences to hear world class scholars visit to lecture. I would estimate that, for one out of every five or six papers, I will venture a question (generally if… Continue Reading
Last week I read Daniel Lynwood Smith’s article, “The Uses of ‘New Exodus’ in New Testament Scholarship” CBR 14.2 (2016): 207–243. I think Smith persuasively shows that the term is a helpful, if problematic, description that likely originated in Isaiah studies, possibly with J. A. Alexander, The Later Prophecies of Isaiah (NY/London: Wiley and Putnam, 1847),… Continue Reading
I took advantage of some down time to redesign the blog. My design goal was to (1) maintain some of the minimalism but (2) dial up some sophistication and (3) give a nod to old-book elegance: dropcaps, indentation, and retro font. The previous iteration of the blog was uber-minimalist and came at a time in which my priority was improving backend speed and security (i.e.,… Continue Reading