Canonizing Scripture: Historical Simulation
We are just wrapping up my undergraduate course at Brown University entitled “How the Bible Became Holy.” I have earlier posted a syllabus for this course, which can be found here. This was the third...
View ArticlePope Francis on the Sadducees
I recently published a short piece on the Sadducees in Bible Odyssey. It was fun to do, if for no other reason than it gave me an opportunity to stake out my (controversial) position on the origin of...
View ArticleAnd Moses Said Unto the GOP…
The other day Nicholas Kristoff published a satirical take-down of Paul Ryan and his budget priorities in the New York Times. He imagines a conversation between Ryan and Jesus, in which Ryan pushes...
View ArticleSelling the Ten Commandments
I recently read Jenna Weissman Joselitt’s book Set in Stone: America’s Embrace of the Ten Commandments and discussed it with my class. The book tells a story about how and why Americans made the Ten...
View ArticleThe “Isaiah Seal”
Biblical Archaeology Review just published this new, tiny find from the excavations at the Temple Mount in Jerusalem: a clay seal (or bulla) that seems to contain the name Isaiah with (a little more...
View ArticleCanonizing the Christian Bible: A Simulation
Every couple of years I teach a class called “How the Bible Became Holy” (and no, I do not assign my book). The past few times I have taught it I have concluded with a simulation exercise – a game,...
View ArticleCanonizing the Bible: Historical Simulation
For several years, I have included a historical simulation as the final exercise of my undergraduate class, “How the Bible Became Holy.” This year I will do the same. The guidelines for the...
View ArticleSirach vs. Ben Sira
The Book of Ben Sira was written in Hebrew by a Jewish scribe around 180 BCE. Jews (well, the Jews who could read) read and ascribed authority to it until the early Middle Ages. The Cairo Geniza...
View ArticleWhen in Rome, go to Paris…
I have been in Rome this semester, which has been an extraordinary experience. I have been working especially hard on my new book, which should be finished soon. I’ve been […]
View ArticleShabbat in Carthage
While teaching my undergraduate course on The Ten Commandments this semester, I came upon the following passage in a sermon that Augustine preached in Carthage in 401: And you, you […]
View Article
More Pages to Explore .....