A few gems for your delectation from the many posts I didn’t have time to draw your attention to earlier in the week. If you just want the funny ones, scroll to the end. But you’ll miss the weird, the wonderful and the just plain worth reading that fill up this round-up with blogging goodness. Feel that link love.
Eddie Arthur has uncovered a seriously weird proposal for Bible translation. Apparently none of our translations are conservative enough, and we need one that gives the “full free-market meaning” of the parables, and excises liberal corruptions like “Father, forgive them, for they don’t know what they’re doing”.
Halden has a lengthy post on ethical blogging, identifying the many temptations to say things on t’interweb that you would never dream of saying to someone’s face.
Ben Myers has a post (he claims a repost, although I missed it first time round) on the experience of worshipping at Hillsong (which is a kind of Baudrillardian – if that’s the adjective – critique of the triumph of the simulacrum over the reality). He also has a thoughtful response from a Pentecostal theologian defending it.
Doug Mangum notes a USA Today column on the need for biblical literacy as an educational issue in schools. I’m not quite sure that school is entirely the answer. In theory religious instruction is compulsory in UK schools, and universities here complain just as much about students’ inability to engage with the religious imagery of Western civilization.
Now a little trio on images. Remember, photographs can tell lies. And in these Photoshop days it gets easier and easier to put the old Kremlin air-brushers to shame. Photoshop expert Scott Kelby has a fascinating post on a recent controversy about the realities of retouching in the trade.
Photographs can also tell the truth in startling ways. 10,000 Words links to 20 photojournalists online portfolios. Take a look to see how many words you think a picture is worth.
Hopi Sen has a couple of photographs of book displays in Waterstone’s Newcastle that (possibly accidentally, possibly deliberately) suggest a sharp critique of celebrity culture.
Oliver Kamm takes Yale University Press to task. They published a book about the furore over the Danish cartoons of Mohammed – but decided it would offend people if they included the pictures being discussed. So you can read a learned discussion of something you’re not allowed to see by order of the publisher.
Stephen Carlson notes the phenomenon of exegetical whiplash – in this case caused by Dick France’s attempts to make sure Jesus wasn’t mistaken about the end of the world.
All the Jims. Both Jim West and Jim Davila draw attention to this fine essay by Steve Mason, which ought to provoke much thought about “consensus” and the carelessness of conventional scholarly ways of talking. I shall have to get the book.
Finally, two funnies to end with. Halden seems to have had a caption competition with Ben Myers, and comes up with this wonderful take on John Piper’s weird hand gestures.
And (a little belatedly) NewsBiscuit does its own riff on atheist summer camps with Scoutmaster Dawkins’ Sod-a-God week.
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