This Blog Has Moved!!

Dear Blogger,

We need to talk. I don't know how to say it so I'm just going to say it: I've started blogging somewhere else. I came across another platform several months ago. It's name is WordPress. I don't know how it happened...I clicked a few links, saw a few blogs, and one thing led to another. Next thing I know I have another blog.

It's not you. It's me.

We're just not a good match anymore. You've changed. We're not close anymore. It just isn't fun anymore. I need more out of a blog and I don't feel like you have what I need. You weren't there for me when I needed you. I know this hurts, but looking back I don't know that I ever loved you.

But we had some good times, did we? We laughed. We cried. We edited CSS.

I hope we can still be friends.

Check me out sometime. I'm keeping my name... A Fistful of Farthings.

Sincerely,
Matthew

Mail RSS vs. Google Reader, etc.

Image via Wikipedia

What is the best method for viewing blogs? In the past I have used Google Reader for retrieving blogs but had too many feeds and this became overwhelming (at least to me). Then I started simply visiting a few webpages, but this becomes too time consuming and narrow. A few days ago I entered several feeds into Mac OS X Mail with it RSS capability and have been very pleased.


Basically, I like this method because it brings everything into the same place with my email. I don't have to surf to different web pages and I don't even have to log in to Google or Blogger...just click the Mail icon. Plus it fits with the Mac branding for mail. It automatically updates every so often and is right under my inbox. Nice.

On a similar note, I've started using Tweetdeck, a desktop program that brings Twitter and Facebook together (as well as other programs that I do not use). Once again, I like this because with the click of a button all your information is brought to you side-by-side in columns. Further, you can post to either Twitter, Facebook, or both at the same time. Neat, huh?

What's Your Ride? Meme

Nick Norelli continues another fun meme, this time about what bloggers drive (and a picture of what they drive). I have posted before on how I drive but I have not posted a pic of what I drive. So here they are:

Here is a pic of my beloved 1986 Honda Shadow which I have affectionately named "Clyde."

I know what you're thinking: "Wow, that is one fly cupholder!" You better believe it. 

Actually, I haven't driven Clyde in several weeks because it has been getting cold and, yes, sometimes it is just inconvenient to get all decked out in my biker garb only to get outside and Clyde be so cold that he won't even crank. Thus, I've just been driving my 1999 Mitsubishi Mirage (affectionately named "Mr. Muragee" [think Karate Kid]):

Ignatius and Jesus' Post-Ascension Body

Image via Wikipedia

In the past I had the idea that Jesus' body after His ascension was some kind of ethereal, non-coporeal body, like a ghost or spirit or something "sitting" at the right hand of God. This view did not originate in Bible study but in the presupposition that Heaven is/will be a place in which no physical object can abide. Actually, I suppose a misunderstanding of 1 Cor 15:44, 50 contributed to this view. These verses read:

It is sown a natural body; it is raised a natural body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body...I tell you this, brothers: flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inhabit the imperishable (ESV).

In short, "spiritual body" (πνευματικόν) does not mean a non-corporeal, Casper the friendly ghost type body, but a body that is characterized by spirit.  That is, in the resurrection our bodies will not be "bodiless," nebulous apparitions but will be "supercharged" by the Holy Spirit. Remember that Jesus, after His resurrection, could still eat, drink, and be touched but could also do cool things like walk through walks and disappear, perhaps even altering His appearance in some way.

Nevertheless, there are other passages that came to my attention that led me away from the "bodiless" resurrection body view. One verse was 2 Timothy 2:5--"there is one God, and one mediator between man and God, the man Christ Jesus." Note that it says the man Christ Jesus, not disembodied spirit.

Another verse that conflicts with this view is Acts 1:11 in which the angels tell that apostles that Jesus will "come in the say way as you saw him go into heaven." Now this "same way" may be adverbial (he will return "in the clouds") or adjectival (a body went up and a body will come down), but it makes sense that if a body went up into Heaven that a body will likewise descend, unless there is a fleshly coat rack on which Jesus hanged His body while He sits at the right hand of God. ;-)

Even more convincing is Luke 24:39. When Jesus appeared to the apostles and two from the road to Emmaus they were frightened but He told them:

"See my hands and my feet, that it is I myself. Touch me, and see. For a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have" (ESV).

Hmm. So if Jesus post-resurrection body had flesh and bones, what indication is there that something changed after His ascension? Nothing of which I am aware.

I have taught this in Bible class and, to my surprise, some do not receive this well, possibly sharing my former presupposition. However, this is no new interpretation because Christians as early as Ignatius of Antioch saw it this way. In his letter to the Smyrnaeans, in which he rebuked the Docetics for saying that Jesus only "seemed" to appear in the flesh, said:

For I know that after His resurrection, too, He still had flesh, and I believe that He has flesh now (in Mike Aquilina, The Fathers of the Church, p. 62).

Interestingly, Ignatius' letters are dated by some to have been written before AD 117. This, here is a very early attestation to the view that Jesus had a body of flesh after His ascension. Interesting.

SBL 2010 in pictures

I managed to snap a few random pics at SBL this year and wanted to share them with you. They are absolutely nothing extraordinary and not exciting but I was brimming with excitement the entire time I was there and want to share these with the spider bots who actually read my blog;-). Thus I begin....

This is a really tall building in Atlanta. Not sure why I felt compelled to take a picture of it. None of the sessions took place here but it was the first building I drove past as I got off the interstate and I had a semi-clear shot so I went for it. 

This is a shot of downtown Atlanta and only a block or two away from the Hyatt where I stayed. When my roommate told me he spent the previous night with the TV drowning out sirens and yells I decided to drive past the $8 parking lots on the street and shell out the $28 a night for parking in the hotel deck. I suppose the outrageous price is worth having a car when you get ready to leave.

This is certainly not the best photo but it captures something of the size of the Hyatt where I stayed. The thing on the right that looks like a space-age phone booth is one of the elevators. Riding up and down on these things all weekend and seeing all the identical rooms reminds one of Star Wars. Actually, it reminded me of that scene from the Matrix where Neo is unplugged from all those weird pod things on that huge wall. It was a bit larger than life.

This is definitely reminiscent of Star Wars. This is the Marriot where many of the sessions were held. Quite amazing.

My professor and I came in late to one of the packed-out Philo/Josephus sessions and heard this gentleman critique the account of Caligula sending idols to Palestine in an attempt to set up the emperor cult in Jerusalem. He doubted the historicity of the event on the grounds that Caligula would have had to been quite a dimwit to think he could pull this off. I am certainly no expert on Philo and Josephus but I found his paper interesting, though I was not convinced.

This is the "top floor" executive breakfast suite. The hotel messed up our check-in, giving us the wrong room, and the second time my professor went to check-in someone else was in the room they gave us! So they apologized by giving us free breakfast while we were there! It was very nice though I felt a bit uncomfortable in such a fancy-shmancy atmosphere. Oh, and this was the only picture I could take without feeling like a total dork who was photographing everything. I might as well have had a big camera hanging around my neck and t-shirt saying "I heart Atlanta" or something.

It was a very fun trip and I wish I had taken more pictures, really (especially of the biblioblogger session--I was on the very front row and had great photo opportunities). Nevertheless, I look forward to going (possibly) to next year's meeting in San Francisco.

Highlights of SBL 2010

• The book exhibit. Oh, only if a camera could capture the excitement at this place!
• The Historical Jesus session in which Darrell Bock, Craig S. Keener, Robert Webb, Amy-Jill Levine, and Robert Miller responded to one another. What I appreciated most about this session was the respectful dialogue between the respondents. While Levine and Miller did not hesitate to utilize their wit and sarcasm and Bock, Keener, and Webb held to their guns, neither "camp" resorted to petty name-calling or such like. Surprising, however, were the concessions by Keener and Webb regarding their doubts about the historicity of certain events in the life of Jesus.
• The biblioblogger session. This was just fun. I met Bill Heroman and saw several other bibliobloggers. It was a very pleasant atmosphere brewing with excitement about the future of scholarship and online publication. On a side note, Christian Brady is a lot taller than I pictured him. "Best Dressed Award" goes to Robert Cargill, whose cufflinks and sharp threads stole the show.
• Matthew Larson's paper on the common oral source for the Two Ways in Hebrews 6:1-6 and the Didache.
• Meeting new people. I doubt the people I met blog so I won't mention their names.
• Getting to know friends. I stayed with my professor in his room at the Hyatt and we had a blast. He's a great scholar, godly man, and a lot of fun to be around.
• Seeing some famous scholars, such as Bart Ehrman, Richard Hays, Lawrence Schiffman, and N.T. Wright (being a lowly graduate student I was much too timid to introduce myself to this heavyweight, so I did what everyone does...snuck up and took a picture;-)

My Meager SBL Book Haul

Since I was blessed just to be able to attend SBL this year I was not able to splurge like a mad-man in the book exhibit, like I had hoped to do. Further, because I arrived on Sunday morning the SBLGNT was LONG gone (but my professor told me we were not missing much). However, I came away with what I consider to be nice additions to my library:

Not shown is Charlesworth's Pseudepigrapha which Hendrickson will be shipping to me (free of charge!!).