Unlocking Romans

While I was browsing through Koorong Bookstore I saw a copy of Unlocking Romans: Resurrection and the Justification of God by J.R. Daniel Kirk. I had a quick look through it and was quite impressed.  I then turned to the backcover and noticed it was $55. I quickly visited BookDepository.com on my Blackberry and saw it was only $26. I really wasn't surprised to see Koorong literally twice the price. I then put the book down with a frown.

Later on I wandered into the Markdowns section of the store and saw a group of Unlocking Romans for $20 each. I quickly grabbed a copy. While I have barely broken into it, I am still impressed.

Post Round up

While I have been absent the amazing posts by fellow bibliobloggers continue to roll out. Some of the noteworthy that I am finally catching up on include a lot of chatter about Dale Allison's new Jesus book Constructing Jesus: Memory, Imagination, and History. Tim over at Earliest Christianity has shared some previews and Dr James McGrath has shared a detailed and favourable review of his advanced copy.

Mike Bird has shared a clever protest against the Papal visit to the UK and earlier this month talked the Gospel of Thomas with Paul Foster. The Bulletin for the Study of Religion has been overrun by bibliobloggers. Joel asks if conservative readings of the New Testament are circular, responding in the negative. And J.R. Daniel Kirk investigated the origin of the rumour that Mary M was a prostitute.

Early Christology was discussed with some recent reviews of Dunn's Did the First Christians Worship Jesus? via here, here and with Scot McKnight here.

Hotmail is Complete Junk (+ my new fish pics)

It is. I feel like an ancient species continuing to use my hotmail account. I can live with the useless interface and extra screens before they actually let you check your email - but the fact that at least once a week I have no access to my email for a few hours is ridiculous. I would give it the flick but I really need the email account - I get many emails a day, many forwarded from other accounts, etc. I would simply forward this to a new one (does hotmail even let you do that?) but if I fail to log in often, like my other account, they will just close it and delete all 30000+ emails.

If you have any useful options please do pass them on.

I intentionally meant this post to be about my new fish but hotmail would not open meaning I could not access the photos I emailed from my phone.

*save as draft here*
The big news? I bought a fish today. A very attractive mostly-blue-but-with-some red-through-the-blue-Siamese Fighting fish. I will fix up a proper home for him tomorrow. (The photos really fail to capture the beauty of this fish.)

Paul, the Theatre and Popular Culture (Lecture)

For History Week, Professor Larry Welborn will be delivering a free public lecture on Paul, the theatre and popular culture.

Details:

Wednesday 8 September 2010

6.00pm

Theatre 1, Building Y3A

Macquarie University

Free entry

Synopsis:
Paul, the apostle to the Gentiles, was immersed in the culture of the Greco-Roman cities where he preached. His letters draw metaphors from the stadium, the voting assembly, and the military barracks.
Paul's most fascinating metaphors are drawn from the theatre, the principle venue of public life in the first century. In his correspondence with Corinth, Paul portrays himself as a 'fool' in the mime. This lecture will combine texts with archaeological artifacts to illuminate Paul's portrait of himself as 'the fool of Christ'.

Laurence L. Welborn is Professor of Ancient History at Macquarie University and Professor of New Testament and Early Christianity at Fordham University in New York City. Welborn received his education at Yale, Tubingen, Vanderbilt and the University of Chicago.

http://www.arts.mq.edu.au/news_and_events/news/paul,_the_theatre_and_popular_culture

Update

An ATM running Windows XP

Usually when I get very busy and have no time to blog I begin to blog...rapidly. Oddly enough, I have been quite busy the past few weeks and have not been posting! I am sure this is a terrible state of affairs for the world. Some updates:

• I have been busy with both academic work in addition to business deals.
• I am working on a review of Mike Bird's Are You the One Who is to Come? The Historical Jesus and the Messianic Question(Baker Academic, 2009) which may find its way to this blog in some capacity.
• D.A. Carson will be in Australia in December.
• I really did see that ATM/Cash Machine running Windows XP. And it had crashed as someone was attempting to withdraw cash.
• Australia still has no result from last weeks election.

Election Night is Over...

...but no election winner has been called to form government.At the closing of the night, the two major parties are essentially equal. Labor has won 70 seats, the Liberal/National Coalition has won 71. Five seats are yet to be called, 76 are needed to form government. The remaining of won seats are 1 Green and 3 independents. The first indigenous Australian member was elected to parliament as a member of the Libs.

What to do?

In the upper house it seems to be the major parties, the Greens (substantially, might I add) and possibly a single Family First senator.

On the lighter side, I made the entire panel on the Channel 9 coverage of the election laugh when they read my twitter update on live national TV.

Pay $50 for your chance to possibly win $1000!

Last year I had nothing nice to say about the 2010 Mythicist Prize. The competition involves writing the best essay in support of the conclusion that Jesus of Nazareth did not exist as a historical figure. How supporting a pre-selected conclusion in exchange for cash passes as honest scholarship is something I do not comprehend.

This year the Mythicists’ Forum is mixing it up with a new competition! Prove that Jesus did exist! The competition rules are quite...interesting to say the least.

If your essay and $50 cheque made out to Rene Salm convinces four mythicists actively engaged in anti-Christian polemics that Jesus existed you may win $1000. Of course, they explicitly state that there is no guarantee that the prize will be awarded. I guess it is a win win situation...if you're Rene Salm.

HT here and here