Hiatus explanation

Over the last week or two I’ve been very busy doing the things I get paid to do (ie being a university chaplain) and thinking about a paper for the upcoming postgraduate conference here at UNE. I’ve also been reading Birger Pearson’s new book Ancient Gnosticism: Traditions and Literature (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2007). The chaplaincy [...]

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Coptic in Twenty Lessons

Somehow or other, an early version of this was posted, rather than the version that contained a number of links and appropriate attributions to books mentioned and a more moderate comment on Layton’s approach to learning vocabulary. I am working on recreating the final version, but here is a better version in the meantime. Bentley [...]

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Amazon and lost books – a good news story

I buy new books from Amazon because it’s often the only place that I can get them for a half-way reasonable price, but I’ve always been a bit wary about them because of the often outrageous prices they charge for second hand books. At the beginning of last month, I ordered a copy of Ancient [...]

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Biblical Studies Carnival XX

The latest Biblical Studies Carnival was put together by Dr Claude Mariottini.  Claude was the July biblioblogger of the month.

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April DeConick on Biblioblogs

April DeConick is the August biblioblogger of the month. In the interview, she talks at length about her views on the way the word Gnosticism is used and also about her takes on the Gospels of Thomas and Judas. Well worth a read.

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Learning Coptic

April DeConick and Mark Goodacre both advocate that students of Christian origins should learn Coptic. I don’t pretend to be an expert in this area, but common sense suggests that not being able to access a signficant proportion of the source documents in their original languages puts you at a distinct disadvantage. So how to [...]

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