Navigating the Intersections of Faith, Knowledge, and Reason.
Jump to the Video Presentation The book of Genesis has often been at the forefront of debates surrounding the environment and our role within it. How should we interpret humanity’s relationship with the Earth from a scriptural perspective? In a video presentation, I delved into the two creation narratives in Genesis and their implications for…
This month’s Oxford Interfaith Forum Monthly Interfaith Psalm Reading & Discussion, hosted by the Oxford Interfaith Forum, was led by Ustadha Yomna Helmy, Centre of Islamic Studies, the University of Cambridge on a Comparative Reading of the Hebrew Bible Psalter and Abraham’s Prayers in the Quran. Two Prayer Texts Dr. Helmy brought us along on…
Letizia Cerqueglini (Tel Aviv University) presented on the spread of Egyptian language found in ancient Hebrew. Her presentation focused on linguistic and cognitive distinctions in the etymology of Afroasiatic languages. She begins by asking how we can separate Afroasiatic linguistic heritage from direct loanwords in antiquity. Her presentation considers many aspects of the connection between…
Zoom, Zoom, Zoom—Tenth Day of a 10-day online academic conference Two years ago, at SBLAAR18 in Denver, CO, I gave a presentation on the final morning of the conference. It is not a popular time slot and is usually filled with visitors on their way to the airport, luggage in hand. The virtual conference last…
One of the delightful consequences of CVOID-19 lockdowns is the pressure for academic gatherings to extend invitations for online attendance. This week, I signed on at midday local time to join an event hosted in the U.K. evening. Four papers were presented and adjudicated for an award. All focused on aspects of violence in biblical…
Dr. Marieke Dhont presented the ANELC eLecture this week, demonstrating linguistic connections between Greek and Jewish culture. In addition, her study provides evidence for a bilingual community of Jews in the Second Temple Period. This time period followed the introduction of Hellenism from the west into the whole of the ancient Near East. Hellenistic Greek…
Professor Gary A. Rendsburg gave this week’s ANELC eLecture on ancient Near Eastern linguistic connections between Egyptian and ancient Hebrew. The lecture flowed naturally from last week’s, given on linguistic connections between Afroasiatic languages. While Dr. Aaron Rubin gave a detailed analysis of shared linguistic features, Dr. Rendsburg looked at specific words and phrases which…
This past Wednesday, the ANELC eLecture was presented by Dr. Aaron Rubin, a Semiticist at Penn State University. Dr. Rubin walked us through linguistic exchanges that suggest a kinship between Egyptian and Semitic languages. Semitic and Egyptian are two branches of a group of ancient Near Eastern languages referred to as Afroasiatic. Dr. Rubin’s presentation…