BioLogos announced today that Pete Enns will be joining their team as a senior fellow of biblical studies. Enns has been guest-writing on their Science and the Sacred blog and participated in the recent workshop noted here. The full announcement (and links to team member biographies) is found here.
I always feel a special connection to the Hubble telescope. And not just because I taught astronomy in an Earth science class. It is because I know one of the astronauts, Kathryn Thornton, who was a mission specialist EVA crew member aboard the Space Shuttle Endeavour on the STS-61 Hubble Space Telescope (HST) servicing and repair mission 1993 (this was the third of her four shuttle missions). Her stories about space travel made me yearn to be an astronaut. Alas, it was not to be (yet!).
James McGrath via Phil Plait first pointed out the Hubble Space Telescope Advent Calendar for 2009, which began today at The Big Picture. Below is today’s image (check the site every day for more amazing images). James has a nice montage of a few of last year’s photos here.
You can view the 2008 calendar here.
I never get tired of looking at these images.
Pete Enns is the Friday “guest voice” again at Science and the Sacred (the BioLogos blog).
This week he is discussing the cognate literature (such as Enuma Elish, Atrahasis, and Gilgamesh) of the Hebrew Bible. Why is this helpful?
Placing Israel in its broader cultural and religious context has been referred to as the “comparative approach.” This is a sometimes-maligned term, as it is unfortunately understood by some to imply that Israel was simply copying or “borrowing” what was around them. This is not the case. Rather, the literature of Israel and that of her predecessors and neighbors reflect a common way of looking at the world. The value of these ancient texts is not in telling us from where Israel got her ideas. Instead, they help us understand what kind of a text Genesis is. I like to refer to this as “genre calibration.”
Read the entire post here.
I’ve been mentioning the workshop “In Search of a Theology of Celebration” in a few posts. The BioLogos blog Science and the Sacred has another post about this workshop, along with a link to a statement signed by the participants.
In the recent post, “Exploring the Truths of Scripture and the Truths of Nature” a small snippet of the statement was quoted:
Many voices in our current culture assert that there are irreconcilable conflicts between science and faith in Christ. We, the undersigned Christian pastors, theologians, scientists, and other scholars, respectfully disagree. We have learned much from each other during these days of communal prayer, presentation, discussion, and worship, but we also recognize that we have much more to learn and many others from whom to learn. We affirm that the truths of Scripture and the truths of nature both have their origins in God, and that further exploration of all these truths can enrich our joyful and worshipful appreciation of the Creator’s love, goodness, and grace. We commit to exploring these important issues further.
The full statement, available for download from the BioLogos Web site, includes the names, affiliations, and endorsements of the workshop participants.
Alan Streett, editor of the Criswell Theological Review sent me a note, which I quote here.
The Spring 2010 Criswell Theological Review (CTR) will focus on the mind-body connection. Besides articles by Joel Green and other scholars, we will include the results of the first-ever survey of Christian attitudes toward hypnosis, which we have commissioned. The findings should be interesting and significant.
Hopefully, you can let your blog readers know about this and encourage them to take the survey at:
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=rt48p_2biRompIDJeR_2buFWow_3d_3d
We want to get a sampling from a wide range of people from within the Christian community.
Thanks,
Alan Streett, editor
Criswell Theological Review
The mind-body connection has been in the news recently (e.g. the NPR series The Science of Spirituality) and as a result I’ve been involved with some interesting conversations regarding this topic. Whatever your thoughts about the mind-body connection or hypnosis, let your opinions be part of the survey the Review has commissioned. And then, be on the lookout for the journal next year to see the results!
The BioLogos blog (Science and the Sacred) has a post with a summary of some of the discussion from the BioLogos workshop last week that sought to look at issues of science, evolution, and theology. A very necessary conversation!
In the history of North American evangelicalism, there has never been a meeting like this. Gathered together at the Harvard Club in New York City were about 55 leading evangelical pastors, theologians, scientists, and other scholars. We were also privileged to have a small number of lay observers, who were especially important in our informal reflections. We spent two days in worship, study, prayer, and fellowship.
The scientists likely all held the position that God has created life in a manner that is consistent with the findings of mainstream science. Many of the others in attendance were not sure what to think, but amazingly–given the schedules of people in leadership positions–they were willing to come from all over the country (and beyond) to spend two days helping us understand the theological and pastoral ramifications of the science which we are so convinced is true. They were so gracious, not just in how they helped to inform us about theology and pastoral care, but especially as they listened to us talk about science. We, the scientists, described the evidence for evolution and attempted to show why it is so important for the Church hear what mainstream biology has to say about creation. They listened, and we were deeply moved by the spirit with which they listened.
Read the entire post here.
With all the concern over getting sick, you might think that there is nothing good that can come from microbes. Not so. Check out these galleries of artwork generated in petri dishes.
I know that many of you have been waiting patiently for some more mental math tricks to amaze friends and family (for my previous post go here). With the holidays coming up, I want to be sure that you have some time to practice these new techniques.
Today we’ll look at how to square two-digit numbers that end in “5.” This is actually quite easy. You only need to remember two things:
1. The beginning part of the answer is found by multiplying the first digit by the next higher digit.
2. The answer will end in 25.
Try it!
I’ll continue to parcel out mental math morsels, but if you really can’t wait, this is a good resource. My mother taught me most of the mental math tricks that I know and this book covers all of them, plus more.
I also promised to keep feeding you some of the problems from Milne’s Mental Arithmetic (1897). So here are a few more. The category is Addition.
A merchant deposited in a bank $25 more on Tuesday than on Monday. If Monday’s deposit was $65, what was the amount of both deposits?
Twenty-five minutes ago it was a quarter to ten. What time will it be one hour and 10 minutes hence?
A farmer sold 27 sheep, lost 16, and had 84 left. How many had he at first?
And one easy challenge (remember, this is supposed to be mental math…don’t pick up a pen/pencil/crayon/marker/quill). This is actually the first (therefore, easiest) of 123 “miscellaneous problems” at the end of Milne’s Mental Arithmetic.
If 1/2 of A’s money is increased by 2/3 of his money, the sum is $560. How much has he?
Curious about #123? Here it is.
A merchant’s expenses during a certain year were 33 1/3% of the gross gain on his sales. His goods were marked 30% above cost. At the beginning of the next year he advanced the price of his goods 10% of the marked price, and during the year cut down his expenses 10%. What per cent did he gain during the second year?
Pete Enns is the Friday “guest voice” for a second week over at Science and the Sacred (the BioLogos blog).
This week he starts to describe in more detail what he means by an Incarnational Model for understanding the Bible.
Models are intellectual constructs that try to account for data. They are ways of putting the pieces together and aim to achieve the greatest degree of explanatory power.
We all have models of reality, whether or not we know it. We all hold to hypotheses and theories (which I will take as roughly synonymous with “model”) to explain what we see.
This is also the case for how we interpret the Bible. All of us–from the most ardent Fundamentalist to the most Liberal Christian–construct models to account for the “data.” The models that are the most coherent (account for the most data) wind up being the most persuasive. No model is pure and objectively correct. They are all working hypotheses, and as such are also always up for revision.
One model that accounts for why the Bible behaves the way it does is an incarnational model. Simply put, an incarnational model of Scripture is one that expects Scripture to have an unapologetically thorough human dimension analogous to Jesus’ complete humanity. Both the human dimension of Scripture and the humanity of Jesus are essential to making them what they are.
Read the rest of this second part in the series here.
National Geographic has some incredible photos of sperm whales eating a giant squid and then photos of the five adult whales apparently teaching a young calf how to dive and hunt.
Here is just one of the 5 photos posted.
Read the brief articles that accompany the slide show.