O frabjous day!

Using my incredible salesman skills (i.e. lying), I convinced my wife that she needed my old iPad 1, so I now have an iPad 2.

I’m also off to London to present a paper and travel around a bit after.

“O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!”
He chortled in his joy.

It has been raining a lot this year

This is quite amazing, and a bit wacky!

 

“Before Abraham Was, I Am”: John 8:48-59, part 1

On Patheos, here.

First Temple excavations south of Temple Mount open

See here.

Lost Persian Army of Cambyses found?

Perhaps.  See here.

 

The Coptic Encyclopedia

The fantastic reference work, The Coptic Encyclopedia, is now available online here.

More on the Secret Gospel of Mark Controversy

Biblical Archaeology Review has an analysis by several scholars that conclude the text was not forged by Smith.  See here.

Here’s a bibliography of earlier studies on Secret Mark.

Morton Smith’s Original Studies

Smith, Morton. Clement of Alexandria and a Secret Gospel of Mark (Harvard UP, 1973)

Smith, Morton. The Secret Gospel: The Discovery and Interpretation of the Secret Gospel According to Mark, 3^rd ed. (Dawn Horse, 2005)

Pro-Authenticity

Brown, Scott G. Mark’s Other Gospel, (Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2005)

Meyer, Marvin W. Secret Gospels: Essays on Thomas and the Secret Gospel of Mark, (Trinity Press, 2003)

Anti-Authenticity

Jeffery, Peter. The Secret Gospel of Mark Unveiled: Imagined Rituals of Sex, Death, and Madness in a Biblical Forgery, (Yale UP, 2006)

Carlson, Stephen C. The Gospel Hoax: Morton Smith’s Invention of Secret Mark, (Baylor UP, 2005)

New exploration of John 8:31-48

Click here.

Photos: Maghak-i Attari Mosque, Bukhara, Uzbekistan

The Maghak-i Attari Mosque is the oldest surviving mosque in Central Asia.  Built in the 12th century, it survived the Mongol conquest of Bukhara.  It is built on the foundations of a fifth century Zoroastrian temple, and was used as a synagogue in the sixteenth century.

On Flickr here.

Photos: Mausoleum of Shah Ismail, Bukhara, Turkmenistan

Isma’il Samani was one of the founders of the Samanid dynasty in north eastern Iran, one of the first Islamic Iranian dynasties after the Arab conquest. The Samanids were a crucial dynasty in the tenth century Iranian Renaissance. His mausoleum from 907 is a classic example of transitional Iranian brick architecture.

On Flickr here.