Thanks to interactiveleaf, I was pointed to this recent article on the oldest Hebrew inscription on an ostrakon from a valley close to Jerusalem.

The actual argument that the article can reasonably make is that Hebrew as a written language is apparently much older than previously thought, possibly as early as the 10th century BC. What the article discusses ( Read more... )

It occurred to me this evening (after a particularly wine-laced meal) that one of the powerful contributions of the de-coherence of cafeteria style spirituality is the way it inoculates on against having one's religious beliefs manipulated for political agendas by others ( Read more... )

Via siderea, Wikipedia for the spiritual and artistically inclined.

PS: The fact that the Italian government confiscated may seem rather surprising, but in Europe, beauty is a public good.

Thirteen years ago I wrote a paper in Old Testament studies about the puzzling section in Genesis VI where the "sons of God" (whoever they may be) take a likening to the daughters of Man and take them for wives and thereby bring forth the Nephilim, the great men of Old.

Nephilim is a very rare word in the Hebrew Bible (almost a hapax legomenon, ( Read more... )

I happen to be reasonably fond of myself. I am also willing to take any opportunity to get some new books. So with Easter just last week, I surprised myself by fulfilling an old wish and acquiring Goittein's magisterial study of Jewish Mediterranean Society of the 9th to the 16th, based on some 10,000+ every-day documents from the Cairo Geniza.

( Read more... )

"Infinite worth" is a fragmented, mediocre back-translation of a German phrase by the great early 20th-century Lutheran church historian and organizer of Science, Adolf von Harnack, introduced in his lectures on Christianity. The German phrase in the original is der unendliche Wert der Menschenseele and translates roughly as "the infinite worth of ( Read more... )

Lookit that, here comes the nice man from Washington to visit, and the locals can only think of purifying what he touched the moment he leaves?

That's not nice.

(You'd think he'd better with religious conservatives ....)

After pretty much completely failing to help slaves get their freedom ("St. Paul didn't say anything about freeing your slaves") and getting women onto the road toward equal rights ("St. Paul said that women should do what their husbands say, just like the Church does what Jesus says!"), Christianity is snoozing off while a bunch of desperate right ( Read more... )

Nina Shea, from the Center for Religious Freedom, wrote a weekend article for the Washington Post that was reprinted in the Austin American Statesman called Uncovering ideology of them vs us. The article is a summary of the longer report that can be found on the center's website. The basic claim is that the Whahabistic government of Saudi Arabia is ( Read more... )