Tag Archives: Bible

A valuable online resource from SBL

9 July 2014 by Steve Walton
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  The Society of Biblical Literature (SBL) have just released their excellent new online resource, Bible Odyssey. It’s a very useful set of articles, aimed at a ‘lay’ audience (although it will be of great value to students, I reckon), about aspects of the Bible. It is well-organised around a series of ‘hubs’, which are places, people or passages. This release of the site has 20-24 items under each of those links, and then each place, person or passage leads to a bunch of other Continue reading →

An evil success! The St Mary’s conference on evil

26 May 2014 by Steve Walton
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I’m delighted to report that the first conference organised by the Centre for Social-Scientific Study of the Bible at St Mary’s University, Twickenham was a resounding success. About fifty of us met to hear papers and engage in fascinating conversation about the topic of evil across a wide range of texts in the Second Temple and early Christian period. My esteemed colleague Chris Keith had done a masterly job in putting this together. Here are some notes on papers which caught my ear—that’s not to say Continue reading →

Chris Keith’s thought-provoking and worthwhile new book

12 May 2014 by Steve Walton
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Chris Keith Jesus against the Scribal Elite: The Origins of the Conflict Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2014; ISBN 978-0-8010-3988-1 [As many readers of this review will recognise, the author of this book is my colleague at St Mary’s University, Twickenham. Professor Chris Keith was kind enough to give a copy of the book I review here, but without any request for review, let alone—of course—for a favourable review. What follows is my responsibility alone.] Get a cup of coffee (or your preferred tipple)—this is a Continue reading →

Stunning video of a river flooding a dry riverbed

27 March 2014 by Steve Walton
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This is a stunning video of huge rainfall in the hill refilling the River Zin in the Negeb. The villagers are gathered to watch this amazing event. This illuminates Isaiah 44:3 ‘I will pour out water on the thirsty land and streams on the dry ground’ or Psalm 126:4 ‘Restore our fortunes, O YHWH, like the watercourses in the Negeb’—verses that make sense in the context of Israel/Palestine in a way that they rarely (although occasionally) do for a westerner like me. 2 minutes 45 Continue reading →

Two scintillating links

5 February 2014 by Steve Walton
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Here are two scintillatingly good links to pieces I’ve really enjoyed watching (the video) and reading (Joel Green’s article). The video is a short (12 mins) talk by Ian McGilchrist, author of The Master and His Emissary, one of the most interesting books of recent times. McGilchrist is a neuroscientist who reflects seriously, and non-superficially, about the relation of the two hemispheres of the brain, and rejects the popular ‘left brain = rational, right brain = creative’ approach. He draws fascinating implications for the dominance of Continue reading →