Justin Brierly, host of the radio show Unbelievable?, invited Denis Alexander, Peter Enns, and Fuz Rana to discuss the historicity or non-historicity of Adam and Eve. You can listen to the show here.
Darrell Bock and Richard Averbeck addressed the same topic in part 2 of the recent The Table podcast (part 1 compares the biblical creation account with one ANE accounts). You can listen to the podcast here.
I listened to a few lectures on iTunes provided by The Jewish Theological Seminary (JTS) that I think readers of this blog may find informative.
First, go to iTunes and search for JTS’s “Library Book Talk Series,” where you’ll find several lectures available.
The two that I recommend are Yoram Hazony’s “The Philosophy of Hebrew Scripture” and Jonathan Klawans’ “Josephus and the Theologies of Ancient Judaism”.
Hazony discusses his 2012 publication The Philosophy of Hebrew Scripture. I found his thoughts on obedience and disobedience of God to be quite thought provoking.
Klawans discusses his 2012 publication Josephus and Theologies of Ancient Judaism. He challenges the idea that Jewish thought was limited to how to obey the law and not theological. This is done by exploring Josephus’ depictions of the Pharisees, Sadducees, Essenes, and others. He has some very interesting things to say about the Sadducees, even proposing that Jewish theology post-Holocaust is more akin to the Sadducees when it comes to how divine providence is understood than the Pharisees and the rabbinic tradition.
I think you’ll enjoy these talks. If you get a chance to listen to them come back and share your thoughts.
N.T. Wright provides his answer to the question many have been asking in recent years:
For most adults it may be somewhat embarrassing to learn a new language to music. We think that it is immature, yet humans have learned alphabets, languages, and longer works to a tune for a long, long time. Mnemonic devises aren’t childish. Mnemonic devises are brilliant, helpful, and work with how our brain remembers things.
When you learned the alphabet of your first language it was likely to music. My first language is English and “A,B,C,D,E-F-G, H, I, J, K, L-M-N-O-P…” had a rhythm that made it memorable. I am thirty years old and sometimes I will hum through a song I learned over two and a half decades ago in order to remember letter order.
So why not do this when learning Koine Greek? Danny Zacharias has put together a resource with videos set to familiar musical themes in order to help students learn everything from the Greek alphabet to infinitives. It is called The Singing Grammarian and you can order it via Kregal Publications or providers such as Christian Book Distributors (CBD).
As I listened to these videos, which played through Quick Time on my computer, I found some tunes more catchy than others, but this is the thing: these paradigms are difficult to memorize. If I have to do rogue memorization I think a little music is more helpful than silence.
The product costs $18. It seems like CBD allows you to purchase individual videos as well in case you find the alphabet easy, but not liquid verbs.
Here are some screen shots:
See my review of Zacharias’ iGreek app here. I received a free copy of these videos for review from Kregal Publications.
Recently I have been listening to some pretty good podcasts and iTunes U lectures on Greek and Roman history. In case you are interested:
- Mike Duncan’s The History of Rome podcast
- Rhiannon Evans’ (La Trobe University) The Roman World on iTunes
- Donald Kagan’s (Yale University) Ancient Greek History on iTunes
- David Pritchard’s (University of Queensland) Ancient Greece: Myth, Art, War on iTunes
If you know of any good podcasts or iTunes lectures let me know in the comments.
Luke Timothy Johnson of the Candler School of Theology gives a talk entitled “Jesus among the Philosophers: Ancient Conceptions of Happiness” (Jan. 30, 2013).
Alister McGrath has written a biography of C.S. Lewis. I want to read it. I imagine many of you do too.
Well, you can begin with a lengthy excerpt provided at the Englewood Review of Books. If you’d prefer to watch McGrath tell you about the book then you can watch the video I imbedded below instead. Finally, if you live in Texas near Houston then you may want to mark this date on your calendar: March 23rd, 2013. McGrath will be giving a lecture at the Lanier Theological Library (LTL) titled, “C.S. Lewis and the Post Modern Generation: His Message Fifty Years Later.” I have a family event scheduled that weekend, so it is unlikely that I will be able to attend. Thankfully, the LTL has uploaded past lectures onto Vimeo. This is good news for all those who do not live near Houston.
