Jeremy Thompson Catholic PhD in Biblical Languages, Programmer, Runner

in bringing down Jim TWest.  We’ll just call him my “Pennsylvania correspondent” to preserve his anonymity.  He, in fact, provided an important piece in the puzzle when equating Jim’s posts to tweets:

“But in making a parenthetical comment about the usefulness of twitter for sharing useful articles and information between colleagues it occurred to me that many of Jim’s posts likely fall within the 140 character limit and often function in the same manner as twitter.”

This allowed us to demonstrate Jim’s duplicity by tweeting Jim’s blog response from his own blog.  It was very shortly after that Jim began to cave under the pressure …

Chris Brady has posted some funny comics on the Dead Sea Scrolls and Christmas.  If you are into comics, I would recommend subscribing to his RSS.  He posts comic strips it seems like a couple of times a week.

Christmas Posts:

Re-struck by How Little Christmas Material is in the Bible

Children’s Hospital Christmas Party a Huge Success

Resources on Matthew’s Geneaology (Mat. 1)

Chris Brady’s most recent post entitled “Jesus Christ is Unavailable for Comment” provides a good model for how to be an introspective person.  He takes a story first cited by Jim West about someone who in the opinion of many may be certifiably insane and uses the story as an opportunity for self-reflection.  The story was about a juror who had officially had her name changed to “Jesus Christ.”  That is enough perhaps to invite mockery, but Chris ends his post:

There have, of course, been numerous TV shows and novels that have used the Jesus was a madman motif and of course society always rejects the figure. But it always makes me ponder and I always come to the same conclusion: if I had been around in the first century to hear and see Jesus I am not so sure that I would have hailed him as Lord.

It is quite easy to point out when other people are crazy.  We have an endless pool of resources to draw upon, modern as well as historical.  It is more difficult, I think, to take the craziness of the world as an opportunity to ponder one’s own life.

No time to write on my own yet.  Maybe later this evening, but here are some interesting posts I’ve read today:

1. John Hobbins – Why believers must complain about and criticize biblical texts
2. Chris Brady – Want a date? Deny the existence of God
3. Doug Chaplin – The wrong question: James McGrath on Jesus as God – This is a must read post in my book.  Have to include a quote, “One also has to ask, theologically, what on earth would it mean to ‘know you are God’? Could you possibly be a real human being (or at least a sane one) if you thought you were God?”

Some Biblical Studies, some humor, some theology.  Hope you enjoy.