CBS Sunday Morning on Mary, Jesus' mother

Tomorrow at 9.00 ET, Martha Teichner reports on Mary, Jesus' Mother with interviews on "The Testament of Mary" now in previews on Broadway and conversations on Mary with Profs Robin Jensen, Craig Evans, myself and a Catholic priest at St Mary's Church in NYC. Enjoy!!

Tony Benn on Jesus

Reports of 9th Coptic Text on Holy Week: Pseudo Cyril of Jerusalem

Recent reports in MSNBC news identify an edited text by Pseudo-Cyril of Jerusalem, Homily on the Life and Passion of Christ, Ms 610 of the Pierpont Morgan Library, NYC. The manuscript probably dates from late 9th C CE. Some of the Brill 2013 book by R. van den Broek can be accessed through Google Books. 

Handbook of Women Biblical Interpreters, Marion Ann Taylor (Baker 2013)

April 19: Women & Girls, Made in God's Image, Wichita, Ks

2013 Women’s Summit of the Episcopal Diocese of Kansas 
Women and Girls:  Made in the Image of God April 19 – 20, 2013
St. James’ Episcopal Church | 3750 E. Douglas | Wichita, KS
Summit Overview: This is the first-ever diocesan Women’s Summit for the Episcopal Diocese of Kansas.

The Summit is designed for Episcopal women of all ages – from high school age and up!
The theme for the Women’s Summit is “Women and Girls: Made in the Image of God.”
The Summit will run from Friday evening, April 19, through Saturday afternoon around 5 p.m., April 20.
Registration and a light dinner will be held starting at 5:30 p.m. on April 19, with the program beginning at 7 p.m.

Three questions will be addressed during the Summit through presentations followed by facilitated
discussion in small groups. The keynote speaker will be Dr. Deirdre Good, a professor of New Testament at General Theological Seminary, our Episcopal Seminary in New York City.
Jodie Simon,  who teaches in  the Women’s Studies department at Wichita State, will be presenting on the question, “What does contemporary society and the media say to us about who we are as women?” Dr. Melissa Tubbs Loya, a Hebrew Bible scholar, will be presenting on the question, “What does the Bible say to us about who we are as women?”  
The third question addressed during the Summit is “What do we say to each other about who we are as women?”

Publication Date of the Iliad?

Recent research suggests that the date of the Iliad is 762BCE by treating languages like genes.

"Languages behave just extraordinarily like genes," Mark Pagel of the University of Reading said. "It is directly analogous. We tried to document the regularities in linguistic evolution and study Homer's vocabulary as a way of seeing if language evolves the way we think it does. If so, then we should be able to find a date for Homer."

The scientists tracked the words in the "Iliad" the way they would track genes in a genome.

The researchers employed a linguistic tool called the Swadesh word list, put together in the 1940s and 1950s by American linguist Morris Swadesh. The list contains approximately 200 concepts that have words apparently in every language and every culture, Pagel said. These are usually words for body parts, colors, necessary relationships like "father" and "mother."

The jury is out...

Gospel of Thomas with Mark Goodacre

Scholarship to support work that makes the church safe for ALL

Scholarship & Grant Programs

THE LOUIE CREW SCHOLARSHIP

In recognition of Dr. Louie Crew’s many years of prophetic witness in and beyond the Diocese, The OASIS – a justice ministry of the Episcopal Diocese of Newark – is pleased to announce a fund to support scholarly work that shares our mission “to make the church safe for ALL people, and to challenge the church when its interest is self-preservation and not prophetic witness.”

The OASIS will award up to two annual scholarships of $2,500. Scholarship applications will be vetted by a special Scholarship Committee which will include Dr. Crew and winners will be announced at our anniversary event in June.

We welcome applications from writers, students, and researchers. To apply:

• Describe specifically in no more than 500 words how you will use the money to support ongoing scholarly work which shares the Oasis'
  mission "to make the church safe for ALL people, and to challenge the church when its interest is self-preservation and not prophetic witness."
• At the top of the sheet include your name and contact information.
• Attach a résumé no longer than one sheet.
• On a third sheet, provide a name, postal address, phone number and any
  electronic address for two references who know you and your scholarship.

THE OASIS GRANT

We will also entertain applications for grants for specific projects within a congregation or ministry which are in keeping with our mission and goals. To be considered please supply the following information.

• What is the purpose of the grant?
• How will the grant be used that’s aligned with The Oasis’ mission?
• What’s the expected outcome as a result of the grant?

Please answer in as much detail as necessary and send your application to us at the contact below. Please note that if a grant is awarded a full accounting of the expenditure will be required.

HOW TO APPLY

The application period for 2012 has already concluded. If you would like to be considered for next year's awards, please apply by April 1st, 2013.

Submit your application to by April 1, 2013 to:

The Oasis
c/o A.S.P.
611 Union Boulevard
Totowa, NJ 07512

or chair@oasisnewark.org

Limitations of an Atheist perspective

Douglas Murray has a good piece in the Spectator about the limitations of atheism which he wrote as an accompaniment to a debate at Cambridge Union with the former ABC, Rowan Williams, Richard Dawkins, and Tariq Ramadan, ‘This House believes religion should have no place in the 21st century’ :

The more I listened to Dawkins and his colleagues, the more the nature of what has gone wrong with their argument seemed clear. Religion was portrayed as a force of unremitting awfulness, a poisoned root from which no good fruit could grow. It seems to me the work not of a thinker but of any balanced observer to notice that this is not the case. In their insistence to the contrary, a new — if mercifully non-violent — dogma has emerged. And the argument has stalled.

These new atheists remain incapable of getting beyond the question, ‘Is it true?’ They assume that by ‘true’ we agree them to mean ‘literally true’. They also assume that if the answer is ‘no’, then that closes everything. But it does not. Just because something is not literally true does not mean that there is no truth, or worth, in it.

Religion, whether you believe it to be literally true or not, provided people, and provides people still, with a place to ask questions we must ask. Why are we here? How should we live? How can we be good? Atheists often argue that these questions can be equally answered by reading poetry or studying philosophy. Perhaps, but how many people who would once have gathered in a place of worship now meet on philosophy courses? Oughtn’t poetry books to be selling by the millions by now?

We do not have many vessels for truth-carrying in our age. 

Accordance Seminars March 2&4 in NJ and PA

Here's a link to Accordance Training seminars in March 2013 in NJ and PA in case anyone is interested. Here's some information:

Sat. Mar 2, 2013, 9 am to 6 pm, Philadelphia, PA, Westminster Theological Seminary 2960 Church Rd., Glenside, PA 19038 Mon. Mar 4, 2013, 9 am to 6 pm, Palmyra, NJ Central Baptist Church 514 Maple Ave., Palmyra, NJ 08065 The seminars are scheduled for 9 A.M. to 6 P.M. and will consist of three sessions with a break for lunch. The schedules are subject to some adjustments.     If you plan to skip the first session, be sure that you are familiar with the Accordance interface and basic searching. The online Podcastsoffer helpful preparation. 9:00 - 12:00: Accordance interface: Toolbar, Library, Searching,  and Amplifying. 1:15 - 2:30: Map, Timeline and Images, User Tools and Notes, iOS. 2:45 - 6:00: Greek and Hebrew, Constructs, Advanced Searches and Wildcards. We recommend you bring a computer loaded with Accordance so that you can follow along, but it is not essential. The training program will be projected. We highly recommend that you purchase a copy of the newly released Seminar Training Manual if you do not already own one. This manual will be referred to throughout the seminar. We will have them available for purchase at the seminar, but you may purchase one in advance for pick up at the seminar if you wish. Just order online and and mark the order for manual processing with a note that you want to pick this up at the seminar so our staff can adjust the order to remove the shipping charges before completing it for you. Be sure to upgrade to our NEWLY RELEASED Accordance 10before attending the seminar, as this will be the version the instructor teaches from. Having version 10 up and running will make it much easier to follow along throughout the seminar. You can upgrade now by purchasing the Accordance 10 Starter Collection. Most people who take the time to come are extremely grateful to learn all the things that they never knew they were missing. Please share this seminar information with the staff and students at any institution in the area, as well as to any users you know.

Talk on January 26th, 2013

       St. John’s Episcopal Church 
12 Prospect Street Huntington NY 11743 (www.stjohnshuntington.org)
Saturday, January 26th, 2013 10am -1pm  (Light lunch will be provided)

Communities Around Jesus: Disciples, Apostles and other Followers in Early Christianity

Using Paul's letters and parts of the gospels, we will discuss emerging communities of disciples of women and men who were followers of Jesus in cities and communities of Asia Minor, Syria, Rome and Jerusalem.

Dr. Deirdre Good is professor of New Testament at The General Theological Seminary, specializing in the Synoptic Gospels, Christian Origins, noncanonical writings and biblical languages (Greek and Coptic). An American citizen, she grew up in Kenya and keeps the blog On Not Being a Sausage (notbeingasausage.blogspot.com). She has written books on Matthew's portrait of Jesus (Jesus the Meek King, 1999), on Mary traditions in Judaism, Christianity and Islam (Mariam, the Magdalen and the Mother, 2005), on households and family in the time of Jesus (Jesus' Family Values, 2006) and most recently, Reading the New Testament, A Fortress Introduction with Bruce Chilton (2010). She also blogs for Episcopal Cafe.

Contact Heather Kress hkress@optonline.net  Church: 631-427-1752
Suggested donation: $10.00
Sponsored by St. John’s Women’s Spirituality Group