More on food and farming

From Ellen Davis, ‘Scripture, Culture and Agriculture’:
The positive aim of the agrarian critique is not that all surburbanites should be farmers but rather that they should move beyond romanticism – a mind-set that always includes a deluded and therefore potentially destructive element – to a realistic relationship with the land on which all our lives [...]

More from Ellen Davis

It is difficult to make too much of the words a good poet employs, although one might read them badly – for instance, by confusing poetic language with dogmatic or scientific statements. [A] poem then should be read with the presumption that every word is deliberately chosen and therefore important. If a word [...]

Scripture, Culture and Agriculture

I’m reading Ellen Davis’s book of this title in preparation for the Scripture and Hermeneutics Seminar which will be discussing it in New Orleans next week. Here are some of the highlights:
In attending to issues of land care in Israel’s Scriptures, I am to some degree shifting the terms common in biblical scholarship and [...]

The New School of Theology

I think I want to teach here. Shame it doesn’t exist.
Yet.

A Modest Proposal

According to this horrifying article from today’s Telegraph, three babies are being killed every day in the UK because they have been diagnosed with Down’s Syndrome.
Horrid.
But perhaps the most shocking statement in the whole article was this:
However, doctors say that women must make the decision according to their circumstances, and that some may [...]

Looking for a job?

There’s one going at HTC. Mike Bird has the gen. I’ll add my two penn’orth and say that I agree wholeheartedly that HTC would be a great place to teach. Though you should bear in mind that Dingwall is a very long way from anywhere. Make sure you look at a [...]

Song of Songs at SBL

I’ve finally found a chance to go through the programme for SBL and I’m encouraged to see that there are a number of papers on the Song:
Saturday, 9.00-11.30 am: F. W. Dobbs-Allsopp, The Ekphrastic Image in Song 5:9-16
Saturday, 1.00-3.30 pm: Me, Poetic Structure of Song 7:12-14
Saturday, 4.00-7.00 pm: Al Wolters, Ann Francis (1738-1800) on the [...]

It’s not too late…

There are still spaces available for the study day on the Song of Songs, hosted by Emmanuel Evangelical Church on October 24th. More info is here. The day will be useful for anyone interested in learning more about this part of God’s word, whether pastor, student, or ordinary Christian. Everyone is welcome.

Acts

When I was at Oak Hill, it was the custom of the then Principal, David Peterson, and his wife, Lesley, to invite all the students and their wives in small groups for a social evening before they left. We had drinks, and Lesley’s fabulous passionfruit slices, David gave some encouraging words and then there [...]

News

While I was at HTC last week, I heard the sad news that Mike Bird will be leaving in January to take up a post in Brisbane. Australia is a long way away and I’m sure that Mike and the family will be glad to be back home, but it’s a sad loss for [...]