Divinity United

The 2013 spring colloquium will be on the topic of Proverbs 8 in the trinitarian debates between Athanasius and the Arians: "Proverbs 8 and Christian Theological Interpretation of Scripture".  The date is Friday, May 17. More information can be found here .

Great quote from Arthur F. Holmes from his classic The Idea of a Christian College : "College is for education, the liberal arts college for a liberal education, and the Christian college for a Christian education. These are the basics to which we must get back. To sell college primarily on some other basis is to operate under false pretenses; and to start into college for some other reason is to ask for frustrations. We must therefore come to see education as a Christian calling, we must explore what ‘liberal education’ means and how it is affected by the Christian’s task" (p. 6).

I just had a question from a student about recommended books and authors that I think most believers should read. It got me thinking about summer reading and just the joy of learning for the sake of learning and for the sake of reading. I have plenty of reading that I need to do this summer for course preparation for next year and for research, but I have just been daydreaming about other books I would like to have stashed away on this table or in that corner just to pick up and read in those small instances that I have opportunity. In the course of my response, I was reminded of Christianity Today's list of the top 100 books of the 20th century. Thankfully, they have posted it online because I am not sure where I have placed my copy of that list, especially considering that list came out 13 years ago now! Here is their list. Agree or disagree, it is a great starting point. Happy reading!

The McMaster Bingham Colloquium will be held on June 8, 2013, and the title of this year's Bingham Colloquium is "Rejection: God's Refugees". The schedule can be found here . The description of the one day colloquium that will revolve around the topic of Diaspora is as follows: "God’s people have always lived as exiles and refugees–from the ancient Israelites to Christians throughout history. This conference explores what it means for God’s people of any age to live as those rejected by their surrounding cultures, and living in the world as refugees. For some, this takes the character of spiritual isolation, living a life of faith within a hostile alien culture. For others, this means living outside their land of origin among strangers and even those hostile to them and their beliefs. This conference explores what it means to be God’s refugees in four broad sweeps–from the Old Testament and its tales of exile, to the Second Temple period and Jewish...

For a longer and more well-informed critique  on the New New Testament (the same topic as my previous  post ) see Daniel Wallace's post here .

I recently received an email from Houghton Mifflin Harcourt publishers about the release of a book edited by Hal Taussig called A New New Testament: A Bible for the 21st Century Combining Traditional and Newly Discovered Texts . The book is the traditional or canonical New Testament with the addition of ten texts that have been found in Egypt and elsewhere over the last one hundred years. The Gospel of Thomas and the Gospel of Mary are two of these texts. Hal Taussig is a founding member of the Jesus Seminar, and he gathered "a council of scholars and spiritual leaders" to talk about the various apocryphal New Testament texts and to vote about which ones to include in the New New Testament. I could only find the list of council members on the short video on the website. Some of this group include Karen King, Stephen Moore, and John Dominic Crossan. The case made in the promotional material is that these ten texts are early Christian literature and some of it "has be...

Jeremy Begbie will be in Toronto giving a Performance Lecture entitled "The Sound of Freedom: The Music of Liberation" on March 20, 2013 at 3-4:30 pm. Wycliffe College is hosting this event at the TELUS Centre for Performance and Learning, Conservatory Theatre, 273 Bloor Street West, Toronto. Having seen him lecture before, his combination of theology and the arts is not something to miss.   Further details here .