Blog Roll

I've finally got around to tiding up my Blog Roll, some Wordpress users have got even fancier (yes James McGrath, I'm talking about you and your lovely iPad-jealous.com) and have moved to Patheos which has a gorgeous layout and well worth a look in its own right. Some discontinued blogs have gone, though I just can't seem to let go of Hebrew Tattoos even though it has been over a year since the last post.

I've added Ken Brown's C.Orthodoxy which I've been following for a while but never added. Check out the great review of the new Harry Potter film. I've also managed to find another woman out there, Suzanne McCarthy on Suzanne's Bookshelf-worthy winner of the June 2011 Top Biblioblogs. Have a look at their list of biblioblogs and the Reference library for more great bloggers!

Let me know if you've any more recommendations (or can find any more broken links!)

EABS Annual Meeting-Blog

If you're attending the EABS International meeting during the summer in Thessaloniki (more info here) make sure to check out the meeting's blog with lots of helpful info regarding accommodation, the weather and cultural info and excursion options.

New Biblical Association of the Church of Ireland

I just received news that the Church of Ireland is setting up a group that focuses on study of the Bible both in their own Church and within other communities. It's always great to see new developments in Bible in Ireland and I wish them every success in the venture.

The offical blurb:

As an Anglican church, the Church of Ireland is committed to theological discourse using scripture, tradition, and reason. However, scripture offers special challenges for the modern context, and many of the current tensions within our Communion can be traced to differences over the interpretation and application of scripture. The current Anglican Consultative Council’s project “The Bible in the Life of the Church” highlights the need for the Anglican churches to reflect seriously on the role which scripture plays in parish and theological life. Scriptural reading should be done both in reference to its original settings as well as the needs of believing communities. Reason insists we engage with the scientific and historical study of the Bible; tradition demands we do so as a faithful community. All too often such work is relegated merely to formal degree programmes, where it can fail to enrich parish worship and community. A forum which facilitates the feeding of continuing biblical education into the life of the church is therefore to be welcomed.


To these ends, we invite suggestions for and participation in the formation of a Biblical Association of the Church of Ireland. This organization will welcome the active participation of both clergy and laity, including biblical scholars, Religious Education teachers, and other interested believers. Said organization would aim to enrich and deepen the use of the Bible in the Church of Ireland by encouraging rigorous and faith-based biblical study. Through the encouragement of diocesan biblical education, periodic events, study material suggestions, and church-wide study themes, the efforts of this group will facilitate the Church of Ireland’s development of a communal approach to scripture. To offer suggestions, get involved, or to join a mailing list, please contact us. Expressions of interest for an interim committee are encouraged. The first AGM is planned for early in 2011.

Although focused on reading and studying the Bible as an Anglican community, we recognize that we share the scriptures with other Christian traditions and with Jewish traditions. It is hoped that our work on collectively reading scripture in a rigorous and reflective way will open new avenues for ecumenical dialogue both within the Anglican Communion and with other communities.

The inaugural effort is to encourage collective reflection on the theme of Creation during Lent 2011, in tandem with The Bible in the Life of the Church’s Task 1. Alternatively we might proceed to the recently announced theme of Social Justice if material is available from the ACC in time. Suggested passages, questions, reflections, and methods of feedback will be provided for the use of parishes and diocese. The results of this work will then be presented to the general synod in conjunction with a proposal for continuation. For more information on this initiative or to offer suggestions, please contact us, or visit the temporary website.
It is hoped that this Biblical Association of the Church of Ireland will better encourage biblical scholars within Ireland to engage with their parishes’ needs and will help build the Church of Ireland as a biblically grounded community.

What if Paul Blogged?

Or Tweeted? From a great blog Cake or Death:

New Blog Roll Addition

The top 50 BibliobBoggers have been published and there's a new entry at number 29-Reading Isaiah as Christian Scripture by Bacho Bordjadze and it's well worth a gander for Isaiah nerds like myself.

Blogs

A good day to highlight that I've just tidied up my Blogroll (Recommended Blogs) to the right of the page, mainly taking out some dead links. It's worth noting that the Times Online brilliant blog on Faith is now subscription only so I've decided not to include it here. Today Mark Goodacre's blog is seven years old (Happy Birthday) and I wanted to mention that as James F. McGrath pointed out recently, Sheffield Biblical Studies Dept has set up a new blog, introduced by James Crossley which will be great great source of info. James' own blog has been quiet since January but there's lots of good stuff on it and we can't all be online all the time so I've decided to leave it be!

As usual tell me if I'm missing out on any blogs and that should be all the tidying up for a while!

"Lost" and the Bible

Some of you may scoff and say this just about covers reactions to my lectures on Hebrew Poetry, but far be it from me to shy away from taking a reference from popular culture (something I see as positive by the way, as my colleagues on the exec of the IBA know all too well!) and you can’t get more popular these days than the Lost finale that was screened this morning at 5am GMT on Sky 1.

Now I’ve a confession before I start-I watched the first series of Lost and dipped in and out for the remaining five, but I am a woman of not much patience and I like to see logic in my TV viewing so I wasn’t able to keep up for the full 121 episodes. However there has been a steady stream of comment on the programme and the biblical allusions, quotations, motifs etc that we can read into it so I’ve put some links up for you to explore and make up your own minds…

E! online has a great blog on the finale which has a good examination of the religious element in the narrative (or parallel narratives), a rather well though out post from Neil Shyminsky on a Ben/Jacob link as well as "BigMouths" great overview.
 

Check out the Gospel According to Lost by Chris Seay and the Facebook site. Chris says:

"All the evidence in 'Lost' is pointing to existence of a truly good higher power, and in turn, to the existence of evil"

Though the show does quote a wide range of philosophers and has made references to various religious terms, like the dharma of the Hindu and Buddhist faiths, there are lots of commentators like Seay who point to the references to the Hebrew Bible.
As a proper obsessive about naming, the character names struck me. There's Jacob, who is the biblical father of the 12 tribes of Israel. And then there is a baby named Aaron, the name of Moses' brother.

Chris states that the story of Lost echoes the Book of Exodus, where the Israelites are brought out of slavery into the Promised Land. While the Jews were literally enslaved, Chris says, the characters of Lost instead bear the brunt of emotional burdens.

Each character has a burden to bear throughout the six series. From a murderer to an alcoholic to a former Iraqi solder who used torture tactics, the characters all have “baggage”. This Chris says, is something that viewers can relate with.

"Deep down, we all know we're not as perfect as we should be," Chris said. That is our personal "land of slavery."

Walt Belcher (Rocking name) of the Miami Herald has a great article which features Seay. Rick Bentley has an article on the more spiritual aspects to the series and a good list of references to the Bible that appear in the show (though some are more religous than biblical) and my first ever link to something associated with wikipedia, the Lostpedia has a mind boggling array of biblical references which include the two major biblical quotations in the series:

• Eko recites Psalm 23 in the episode "The 23rd Psalm" and begins to recite it in "The Cost of Living" immediately before the "Monster" kills him.
• In the Ajira Airways website, the source code includes the verse John 3:16: "For God so loved the world that he gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life."

"Bible Dudes" Website

Bible dudes is a fun website that is actually very informative (Something I hope that my own blog manages to achieve!) It describes itself as

a totally awesome, entertaining, and informative website devoted to teaching the most influential book ever written — as well as the completely amazing discipline of biblical studies.

You can tut all you want but the site is actually written by two US university lecturers who should know better, Michael M. Homan from Xavier (check out his blog) and Jeffrey C. Geoghegan from Boston College Few will admit to having heard of these two before but they are the co-authors who wrote The Bible for Dummies-don't pretend you haven't at least had a peak!

More Bible websites should describe themselves as "totally awesome" in my opinion! The site has five main sections, Bible, Biblical Studies, Tanak, Apocrypha and New Testament. The biblical studies section is particularly good-with a good overview of the main critical approaches to the biblical text, such as source, redaction and form criticism, as well as archeological finds that relate to the Bible. The graphics for these are all cartoons rather than colour photographs for example the Siloam inscription below:

The site also offers a translation of the various inscriptions that it depicts.

The site doesn't offer a whole deal of new or academic information on the subjects it treats, but it does make you laugh and gives an excellent overview of the topics it features. For example, Mr T (the cartoon on the right is from the site too) teaches us about the Book of Genesis ("I pity the fool who doesn't know about Genesis!"). The Apocryphal literature fares a little better and the New Testament was under construction as this review was written. Keep an eye on their blog for more up-to-date information on the heady and exciting world of biblical studies! And make sure to try the quiz and get into the Hall of Fame-you get a rather "awesome" badge to display too!

With special thanks to the Bible Dudes for generously allowing me to use the images above! And no, they didn't give me the quiz answers beforehand!

Intercom Article-Blogging

Published in the July/August 2009 edition of Intercom magazine.

Reproduced by kind permission.

Even those who do not regularly surf the Internet would be aware of the recent rise in popularity of “blogs” or “weblogs”. A blog is very much like a personal diary or journal that is posted regularly online to be shared with friends or the “blogosphere” in general. Some describe the method of communication as a daily pulpit or your own memo to the world. Blogs have reshaped the web, impacted politics, shaken up journalism, and enabled millions of people to have a voice and connect with others. One of the main benefits of this phenomenon is that as there are literally millions of blogs in cyberspace, there are no real rules for running your own; anyone with anything to say or share is able to let their opinion be heard. So while blogs are certainly an excellent way of learning what other people and parishes are doing to improve their parish life or get people involved in their Liturgy why not take the plunge and visit a website and set up your own for yourself or for your parish group? I have recently set up my own blog through this site so feel free to visit the site and pose any questions you may have about the very simple process.

If you would rather see what others have to offer rather than publish your own thoughts, The Deacon's Bench is an excellent site to start with. Written and maintained by a Catholic deacon, the benefit of blogs may be instantly seen. The writer posts on current events both in the Church and the world in general and offers links and information on a wide variety of current subjects. For a more general selection, Catholic Blogs offers updated articles daily from over a thousand Catholic blogs and is a good site to get a general overview of what blogs have to offer. More specifically, the London Times blog on Religion and Faith written by Libby Purves and Bess Twiston Davies  is an excellent source of current information on world religions and trends. The blog is updated at least daily and often features superb pictures and links. Most blogs follow the same format of indexing their subject matter under “categories” so that you can easily search for a topic of your choice and this blog offers a very wide range. Closer to home, the blogs on Catholic Ireland are run by Sacred Space and features nine bloggers, giving a wide range of focus and opinions about current affairs. It also gives very helpful information on RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds. This system of subscription features on most blogs and means that you can link the blog to your homepage (for example) with just a few simple clicks and get an instant update when a new post on your favourite blog is published.

So what's the Blog about?

I write a regular column for the Intercom magazine (a pastoral and liturgical resource magazine published by Veritas Group, an agency of the Irish Catholic Bishops’ Commission on Communications) where I review and recommend various websites that I think would be useful for anyone involved in parish work or for their own interest.

I generally stick to a theme, usually something that fits in with the time of year or a subject that might help in the preparation of a Liturgy, though I'm always welcome to suggestions and am eternally grateful for all the people who email me with recommendations for new and improved sites. My own background is in Scripture (I have a PhD in Theology from St. Patrick's College, Maynooth) so I am fully aware that there is a slight bias in some columns for all things biblical! I've also taught trainee primary school teachers in Mary Immaculate College, Limerick and work with Diocesan Post Primary Advisers in promoting resources for the Internet in Religious Education.

This month's Website Review is on blogs and as I am recommending blogger.com as the best place to start your own blog, I thought I should finally take the plunge and begin my own! This blog will mainly consist of my Website Reviews from Intercom and other resources and links that I think you might find useful. Hopefully on a personal level it will give me a space to keep all my resources together in some kind of organised fashion and let the readers of Intercom give me some feedback!