Most Ancient Hebrew Biblical Inscription Deciphered
Ancient tablet reveals Noah’s ark was circular
A Residential Building from the Time of Jesus was Exposed in the Heart of Nazareth
Shroud of Turin Not Jesus’, Tomb Discovery Suggests – but it did wrap the remains of a leper, making it the earliest known case of leprosy
Shop Class as Soulcraft: An Inquiry into the Value of Work, by Matthew B. Crawford (New York: Penguin, 2009). Contents: A brief case for the useful arts — The separation of thinking from doing — To be master of one’s own stuff — The education of a gearhead — The further education of a gearhead : from amateur to professional — The contradictions of the cubicle — Thinking as doing — Work, leisure, and full engagement.
I’m a sucker for any book that has to do in some way, even tangentially, with motorcycling. This one has the picture of a vintage BMW on the cover, so I fell for it. And I sort of liked the book. It contains the extended reflections of a University of Chicago PhD in political philosophy who went on to set up shop fixing motorcycles in Virginia. So it is no surprise it waxes philosophical, in particular on the satisfactions of manual labor, in contrast to the emptiness of the work he did first as the writer of professional journal article abstracts and then as the director of a Washington, D.C. think tank.
I’ve had my Kindle DX for a couple months now. Here are some of my thoughts so far.
If is definitely too pricey. But because I’ve been experimenting with an e-text version of Reading the Old Testament for years now, I felt I needed to get some experience with this new delivery technology.
I love it for reading fiction. I’m a fan of procedural thrillers the likes of Michael Connelly (though his most recent work lacks the old punch and compelling character development) and Robert Crais. No need to keep books like these laying around when you are done, and saves a trip to the library. Delivery of these books from Amazon is virtually instantaneous. Those that are not new releases are $6.39.
I’m really surprised at how fast I can read from the Kindle. This is subjective, haven’t made a quantitative study of it, but my impression is that my mind is so attuned to the format and font right now that the medium does not interfere with absorbing the content. Right now I attribute it to that fact that every book, no matter who publishes it, appears in exactly the same font, page size, and page layout. The mind doesn’t need to adjust to every new format.
Keeping my place was never easier. When I stop reading and turn the device off, then next day turn it on, it goes directly to the page I was on. The lack of page numbers took only a little getting used to. Instead there are line numbers, and position is indicated as a percent of the total number of lines. I used to get a sense of reading progress by feeling the bulk of pages between thumb and index fingers. Very tactile. But seeing 90%, then 95%, etc. is becoming just as satisfying.
NY Times “Does the Brain Like E-Books?”
USA Today “School chooses Kindle; are libraries for the history ‘books’?”
EDUCAUSE “E-Books for Academe: A Study from Gettysburg College”
Barry Bandstra rode the Great Divide on a motorcycle trip that lasted from July 22 to August 9, along with his friend Jaco Hamman from Western Theological Seminary. Read Jaco’s account of the trip. Barry rode his 1999 Kawasaki KLR 650 and Jaco rode his 2005 BMW R1200GS. The Great Divide, also called the Continental Divide, marks the line of highest elevation of the North American continent and runs through the Canadian Rockies, then through Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, and New Mexico, and continues on into Mexico. The US portion of the Great Divide trail begins in Roosville, MT on the Canadian border and runs 2497 miles to Antelope Wells, NM on the Mexican border.
The last Continental Divide road sign is just outside Antelope Wells, NM
The Great Divide Trail is a mountain biking trail that was developed by the Adventure Cycling Association, and motorcycles are welcome. The official trail is mostly off paved roads and follows some single track trails, forest access roads, logging roads, and back country gravel roads. The total trip was 6,172.4 riding miles according to the GPS. The GDT crosses the continental divide 24 times.
The color-coded map indicates the trip by days.
Great Divide Ride 2009
A team from Trinity Southwest University continues to dig Tall el-Hammam in Jordan. They report their results on their dig website and make a case that their site is the ancient Sodom from the book of Genesis (see Genesis 18-19).
With your typical media hype (and with a bit of perhaps shameless self-promotion thrown in), KOAT in Albuquerque reports “A real-life Indiana Jones tale is unfolding in New Mexico. A group of Albuquerque archaeologists think they’ve solved a biblical mystery. ‘From a biblical point of view, this is arguably the most important archaeological excavation of all time,’ archaeologist Dr. Steven Collins said” … hopefully tongue in cheek. The hype is mitigated somewhat by the archaeologists’ laudable community outreach reported in the article, exposing fifth-graders to the actual work of excavataion. One kiddo reports, “It’s cool, because you get to touch it — more than just read about it.” Amen to that.
USA Today reports a just released Pew Faith in Flux survey that attests patterns of church and denominational shifting, as well as people simply opting out of the organized religion scene.
Bono
Bono’s New York Times post-Easter reflections — “the dying and living that is Easter.” Profit, commerce, what if we are losing our soul?
As reported in Science Daily, the University of Toronto led excavation of Tayinat in Turkey has uncovered a 10th/9th century BCE temple. It evidences cultural and political continuity going from the Late Bronze age to the Iron age, which undercuts the otherwise concensus view that this period was one of cultural collapse and chaos in the eastern Mediterranean region.
Excavation of the Tayinat temple
The Israel Antiquities Authority Press Office issued a press release regarding a fragment of a stone inscription that contains two fragmentary lines of Hebrew. One of the words may be reconstructed to read “Hezekiah”. Also ScienceDaily.
Hezekiah inscription
The April 6, 2009 issue of Science Daily describes a collection of five foot-shaped structures in the Jordan Valley. These Iron Age stone enclosures may be related to festival gatherings, and may be related to the Hebrew terms gilgal (round stone structure?) and hag (festival procession).
Stone Enclosure in Jordan