Christmas music 3

Go, Jesus! It's your birthday!

Christmas music (cont'd.)

Tom Waits, Christmas Card from a Hooker in Minneapolis, poignantly bookended by Silent Night:

Christmas music

Frankie Goes to Hollywood, The Power of Love:

A new book on the Sibylline Oracles

My review of J. L. Lightfoot's The Sibylline Oracles: with Introduction, Translation, and Commentary on the First and Second Books (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007) is set to appear in The Classical Review (2009) 59.1: 101-3. At xxiv + 613 pages, Lightfoot's is the biggest book on the subject since Alexandre's 1856 Excursus ad Sibyllina (which weighed in at 624 pages of 19th-century scholarly Latin!) and, in addition to bringing the discussion up-to-date (and in English!), will prove (I predict) to be every bit as indispensible as Alexandre's (out-dated and un-Englished though it be) still is.

And I quote . . .

The least of learning is done in the classrooms.

Thomas Merton

Why the McCain campaign failed

The Desktop Challenge

My desktop wallpaper came with Windows Vista, but it's anything but generic: "Swimming Carp" by Japanese ukiyo-e artist Utagawa Hiroshige (1797-1858). Confucian/Taoist/Zen answer to the Jesus Fish.

Thank Jim West for instigating this edition of the Desktop Challenge (where "52 responses so far" can be found) meme.

My take on the issue of (gay) weddings

The celebration of the beginning of new life in the baptism or dedication of an infant in church isn't tied to the production of a birth certificate. The recognition of the end of life in a funeral in church isn't connected to the production of a death certificate. So why do we (Christians) persist in thinking that the production of a marriage certificate ought to require a religious imprimatur? Why is it only with reference to marriage that we expect the church to function as an agent of the state? or the state to function as an agent of the church? To paraphrase deconstruct what Moses said: Let it go, my people.

This thought experiment is well worth pondering.

To my Latin students . . .

. . . in particular, and to learners of ancient languages in general, I would like to offer these words of encouragement uttered by Tom Hanks' character, Jimmy Dugan, in Penny Marshall's delightful film, A League of Their Own:

It's baseball. It's supposed to be hard. If it weren't hard, then everyone would do it.

Have a happy (and be) Thanksgiving!

If you haven't read this little book yet . . .

. . . I'm referring to Walter Bruegemann, William Placher, and Brian Blount, Struggling with Scripture (Westminster John Knox 2002) . . . well, Greg Carey makes a terrific case for why you should.

If you want to improve your skills in reading biblical Hebrew . . .

. . . you should heed the bibliographical advice offered by Stephen Cook at Biblische Ausbildung.

Eminently sensible career advice . . .

. . . that both undergraduate and gradutate students interested in biblical studies would do well to heed is available at April DeConick's "Forbidden Gospels" blog. (ī, puella!)