One of things I do at the Grace & Knowledge website is post reports on each of the annual Yamauchi Lectures at Miami University. The series started in 2006. Today I finally posted a report on NASA astronomer Jennifer Wiseman's 2019 lecture.
The next lecture is coming up in early March. The speaker will be Wheaton College archaeologist Daniel Master, who was one of the directors of a long-running dig at Ashkelon. I am looking forward to this one, as usual.
One thing that I do in Grace & Knowledge is report on significant lectures given at Miami University. This task can be a challenge for lectures that include lots of technical detail.
For example, in 2007 Richard Hess of Denver Seminary gave an important lecture showing that the archaeological evidence we have of ancient Israel's religious beliefs and practices is consistent with what we read in the Bible's historical books. There was so much detail in Hess's lecture that for years I wasn't able to put together a summary.
Then in 2018, I discovered that Hess had given the same lecture at BYU in 2009, and that lecture was recorded and made available on You Tube. With help from that recording, I have been able to finally post a summary of the lecture.
On March 23 the Center for Judaic-Christian Studies in Dayton will be sponsoring a series of lectures on Christology by Bible scholar Michael S. Heiser. Dr Heiser will be explaining the biblical and historical roots of the high Christology of the first Christians and the New Testament. This is one of the topics he covers in his book The Unseen Realm.
To help set the stage for these lectures, I wrote an article for the Center's March 2019 Haverim Update giving a quick summary of the topic. I have also posted it in Issue 34 at the Grace & Knowledge website.
On October 4, 2018, Jodi Magness visited Oxford to give a lecture on the excavations at the Huqoq synagogue in the Galilee region.
Each summer since 2012, there has been lots of media coverage, particularly from National Geographic and Biblical Archaeology Review, of the wonderful mosaics that have been uncovered there.
I have posted a summary of the lecture at the Grace & Knowledge website.
New Testament textual scholar Daniel B. Wallace of Dallas Seminary is visiting Oxford this weekend. Wallace heads the Center for the Study of New Testament Manuscripts, an organization whose goal is to obtain high-quality digital photographs of all the world's Greek New Testament manuscripts. These manuscripts total some 2.6 million pages, and the CSNTM has already photographed over 300,000 pages.
The official count of Greek manuscripts currently stands at 5845, Wallace said that the number increased from 5839 during his recent trip to the Greek National Library in Athens, when he was able to add 6 more to the official total.
On March 6 Wallace had dinner with a group of Miami faculty and shared stories of his adventures. He fielded a number of questions from us. I asked about the recent news of a first-century Mark papyrus that is rumored to have been found in an old mummy mask. This papyrus is still unpublished, and Wallace isn't able to reveal anything about it because of a nondisclosure agreement.
Wallace's lecture on March 7 covered familiar territory. He explained that we currently are pretty close to knowing what was in the original New Testament text. There are several disputed...
Every spring I look forward to the annual Yamauchi Lecture, which features some outstanding Christian scholar. In 2015 the speaker will be New Testament textual scholar Daniel Wallace.
Today I filled in a gap in my online record of the lectures, adding a summary of Donald Carson's 2011 lecture.
Dr. Marvin Wilson, who visited Oxford in March, was back in southwestern Ohio on June 28.
To mark the publication of his new book, Exploring our Hebraic Heritage, he gave three lectures that morning, then a sermon that evening at Church of the Messiah.
The sermon provided an overview of the book of Micah, a very appropriate complement to the Minor Prophets study at Church of the Messiah this year.
Back on October 5, I had the opportunity to attend a series of very stimulating lectures by Dr. David Emanuel of Nyack College. The lectures dealt with the way that motifs from the Exodus are used throughout the BIble.
I have now posted an article based on these lectures.
On Monday, October 7, there was a lecture on campus by Miami alumna Becky Norton Dunlop, who is vice president for external relations at the Heritage Foundation in Washington.
Dunlop (class of 1973) lectured on "The Future of Conservatism". She called on political conservatives to go "back to the future" by rebuilding the coalition of economic and social conservatives that elected Ronald Reagan.
She spoke in rather vague generalities, the way candidates for office often do, even though she is not running for office as far as I know.
After half an hour she fielded questions. If I could turn back the clock, I would have asked her to say something about environmental and energy policy, one of her specialties. (She worked in the Dept of the Interior during the Reagan administration.) This is also an area where I think the current administration's approach is completely wrong, to the detriment of the whole country, especially the poor. Making eveyone poorer on purpose doesn't make any sense, in my opinion.
Back on March 23, 2013, Dr. William Lane Craig gave a lecture at Miami University on proofs for the existence of God in light of the scientific discoveries and theories of the past century. Today I posted a report on that lecture. The content of the lecture is covered in Craig's book Reasonable Faith.
Yesterday I received an email from an Israeli Bible scholar, Dr. Eliyahu Lizorkin-Eyzenberg. I've added his website to the Links page.
Back in 2005, I heard an interesting lecture by an Australian scholar, Dr. Don Stanley, on how the land Sabbath is observed in the modern nation of Israel.
Over the years since, I have occasionally heard from people who enjoyed the article that I posted on Stanley's lecture. One response came from a Norwegian who related his own experiences in rotating his crops and giving his land sufficient rest.
Back on March 21, 2013, I was able to attend an interesting lecture about Christianity in Africa and the impact of African immigrants on the American religious scene. The speaker was Dr. Jehu Hanciles of Emory University. I have uploaded a summary of the lecture.
Prof Hanciles explained that over the past century, Christianity has spread very rapidly in Africa, so that the direction of missionary activity in the world is now being reversed. We used to think of missionaries as people from the West who traveled to Africa or Asia. Now it is often the other way around.
Ken Jennings Gives Geography Department's McConnell Lecture
April 22, 2013
On April 22, Sherry and I enjoyed a campus lecture by Jeopardy champion Ken Jennings.
Jennings, who had an amazing winning streak of 74 games on the popular TV game show, talked a little bit about what it was like to be on the show. During his winning streak he flew back and forth to Los Angeles, where a week's worth of shows are filmed in a day. At the end of a show, when the players are shown chatting with host Alex Trebek, everyone actually feels rather uncomfortable, he said. The losers are disappointed, and the winner knows that in a few minutes it will be time to change clothes and start another game.
Jennings mentioned that contestants are told not to use the word "trivia" on the show. And he agreed that the game is not "trivial". Rather, it's about cultural literacy, much of it fairly important stuff.
He talked about the experience of being soundly beaten at Jeopardy by Watson, the IBM supercomputer. The audience at those games, he said, was a group of IBM employees cheering on the machine. It was man vs. machine on the machine's home court, with the machine seemingly rendering him obsolete....
Tonight at the public library in Oxford there was a presentation on the effects of the 1913 flood on towns in this area.
From March 23-26, 1913, about 9 to 11 inches of rain fell in this area. The ground was already saturated. In Hamilton, Ohio, the Great Miami River rose to 34 feet high. Thousands were left homeless. A few hundred died. This was the biggest weather disaster in Ohio history.
The library presentation included photos from towns around the region. There was flooding in Camden, and in Brookville, Indiana. In New Trenton, Indiana, a guy named Grover Brown floated down the Whitewater River on a dance hall pavilion and was rescued after 36 hours.
After the flood, people in southwestern Ohio decided to be proactive about preventing further floods. (There had been a bad flood in 1898, too.) The Miami Valley Conservancy was formed. A system of dry dams and levees was constructed to handle floods up to 40 per cent worse than the one in 1913.
This was apparently one of the biggest public works projects in US history up to that time, and it didn't use any federal money. The slogan "Remember the promises...
As usual, there are some interesting campus lectures in February and March.
My favorite so far was last night's lecture by John Dolibois (Miami class of 1942 and US ambassador to Luxembourg from 1981-1985), looking back at his time as a US interrogator of Nazi officials in preparation for the war crimes trials. Dolibois is 94 now, and I was glad to have a chance to hear him speak.
There's an archaeology lecture coming up on March 4. Brian Rose (a Haverford alum) will be talking about archaeology related to the Trojan War.
Then on March 6, the physics department will be featuring a lecture by Nobel laureate Eric Cornell. Cornell is also a survivor of necrotizing fasciitis, having lost his left arm to flesh-eating bacteria in 2004.
Philosopher William Lane Craig will speak on March 23 on "Theism, Atheism, and Big Bang Cosmology" I'm looking forward to this one too.
Today I've posted my report on the 2012 Yamauchi Lecture, a discussion of "Josephus and the New Testament" by Paul L. Maier, Professor of History Emeritus at Western Michigan University.
Maier's engaging lecture was timed perfectly from my point of view, since our Bible study group has been making heavy use of Josephus in a study of early Christian history.
At Paul Maier's lecture on March 17, it was announced that the 2013 Yamauchi Lecture would be given by philosopher William Lane Craig on the topic, "Theism, Atheism, and the Big Bang". It should be good.
2012 Yamauchi lecture on "Josephus and the New Testament"
March 7, 2012
I'm looking forward to this year's Yamauchi Lecture, to be given on March 17 by Paul L. Maier, Prof Emeritus of HIstory at Western Michigan. The title is "Josephus and the New Testament".
Maier is an expert on early Christian history. I highly recommend his English translation of Eusebius's Ecclesiastical History, one of the favorite volumes in my library.
There've been some good lectures on campus already this fall.
On September 20, Dr. Connie Rodriguez of Loyola University New Orleans gave an Archaeological Institute of America lecture on "Dress Boots of the Roman Emperors". I've never been especially interested in expensive Italian shoes, but hearing about ancient footwear turned out to be fun. I've posted an article on this lecture at the G&K website.
On October 10, Dr. Daniel Buxhoeveden of the University of South Carolina gave a lecture called "Christianity and Science in Dialogue". I was glad to hear the thoughts of a scientist who is also a serious Christian (of the Eastern Orthodox persuasion).
Then on October 12, writer Hooman Majd, who is a citizen of both the U.S. and Iran, shared an Iranian perspective on America in a lecture called "The Iran Question."
In between mailing out income tax forms, I had a chance to check out some lectures last week:
A lecture on Gnosticism by David Brakke of Indiana U.
An AIA lecture on ancient Roman architecture.
A lecture by historian David Marwell on the detective work involved in figuring out what happened to Nazi war criminal Josef Mengele after World War 2.
A lecture by Fox News commentator S.E. Cupp on her book Losing our Relgion: The Liberal Media's Attack on Christianity.
All were worth attending. The Marwell lecture was especially good.
There was a wonderful lecture on campus tonight. Theologian Donald A. Carson spoke on the topic of his forthcoming book The Intolerance of Tolerance.
As Carson pointed out, the usage of the word "tolerance" has changed drastically in recent years. The word used to mean, "I disagree with you, but I'll allow you the freedom to be wrong." More recently, it has come to mean, "You have no right to say that someone else is wrong."
How did this change occur? In his lecture, Carson surveyed the history of the concept of tolerance. I'm looking forward to reading the book.
I've posted a new article at the Grace and Knowledge website based on Richard Talbert's Sept 20 AIA lecture on an unusual Roman world map now commonly known as the Peutinger Map.
The lecture encouraged its audience to think about maps in a new way. We usually think about maps as conveying certain kinds of practical information, but maps can also serve a number of other purposes. In the Roman Empire, maps were a form of public relations.
There are three Archeological Institute of America Lectures scheduled for the 2010-2011 academic year, on Sept 20, Feb 23, and April 13. I'm looking forward to them, as usual.
Today I put a new page on the website with links to reports on the annual Yamauchi Lectures at Miami. I have been meaning to do this for awhile, since I plan to continue writing these reports each year.
I'm already looking forward to the lecture next March. The 2011 speaker, Donald A. Carson, is the author of, among other things, my favorite commentaries on the Gospels of Matthew and John.
After a cold, snowy winter, spring has arrived rather suddenly with 80 degree weather the past two days.
As usual, there've been some good campus lectures this year. Some of my favorites so far:
Mark Noll of Notre Dame gave this year's Yamauchi Lecture on "The Bible and Slavery", based on his book The Civil War as a Theological Crisis. He also gave a great sermon on Hab 2:14 at Oxford Bible Fellowship.
Wesley J. Smith, a staunch defender of the dignity and sanctity of human life, gave a lecture called "Bioethics: Creating a Disposable Caste?"
Benjamin Anthony, a reservist for the Israeli Defense Forces, spoke in defense of the IDF at a lecture sponsored by Miami Students for Israel.
I'll try to write reports on the Noll and Smith lectures over the next month or so.
Lecture on Modern Jewish Reactions to the New Testament
March 2, 2010
Back in April 2009, less than a week after I got out of the hospital, I was able to attend an interesting lecture by Dr. Michael Cook of Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati.
Cook, a Jewish scholar of the New Testament, has taught classes in New Testament to many Jewish students studying to be Reformed rabbis. He talked about how educated Jewish readers tend to approach and interpret the Gospels.
It took me awhile to write a report on Dr. Cook's lecture, but I have finally posted one.
Here's a riddle: What's creme-filled and prophesies?
Answer: The Delphic Oreo
Last night Sherry and I got our driveway shoveled out from the latest snowstorm (we've had about two feet of snow all together over the first half of February) and went to the University art museum for an archaeology lecture.
The speaker was John R. Hale of the University of Louisville, part of an interdisciplinary team that has given a scientific explanation of the ancient oracle at Delphi.
It turns out the temple of Apollo at Delphi was built over a place where two geological fault lines intersected. The faults allowed ethylene gas to enter the temple, putting the woman who did the prophesying into a trancelike state.
These ladies were apparently adept at making enigmatic pronouncements that could be interpreted in multiple ways, much like the folks who write newspaper horoscopes. People came from all over the Mediterranean world to hear those pronouncements, which were delivered on only 9 days a year. Plutarch, who worked at the temple in the late first century, mentioned once seeing a guy from Britain standing in line next to a guy from Arabia.
Delphi must still be a popular tourist destination. A number of people in the audience raised their...
This was a busy week on campus. Historian David McCullough was in Oxford on Monday night, giving a lecture entitled "Leadership and the History You Don't Know."
On Tuesday, archaeologist James Russell gave an Archaeological Institute of America lecture called "Chasing a Roman Soldier."
On Wednesday a representative of Feminists for Life spoke out on behalf of the unborn and their mothers.
On Wednesday and Thursday there was also a miniconference on the legacy of Lincoln, Darwin, and Poe, with historian Daniel Walker Howe as a keynote speaker.
Then on Friday there was a conference celebrating the creation of the new Statistics Department, with a number of alumni reminiscing about their time at Miami and reporting on how they've used their training in statistics and mathematics in their careers.
Each year on the last Saturday night in March, there's a special lecture at Miami University, given by some noted evangelical scholar in honor of Dr. Edwin Yamauchi, a longtime history professor at Miami who retired in 2006.
The first three Yamauchi lectures were given by Darrell Bock, Richard Hess, and Craig Evans. The 2009 speaker was Old Testament scholar Walter C. Kaiser, Jr.
Kaiser was a graduate school classmate of Dr. Yamauchi's. The two of them (along with Marvin Wilson, another rather well known evangelical scholar) were students of Cyrus Gordon at Brandeis in the 1960s. Kaiser retired a few years ago from his position as president of Gordon-Conwell Seminary, and he has been working on a number of writing projects since then.
Dr. Kaiser is, among other things, the editor of the NIV Archaeological Study Bible, and his lecture was an overview of biblical archaeology, highlighting some of the top discoveries from each era of biblical history. I'll post an article on the G&K website when I have a chance.
Kaiser prefaced his remarks with the story of how he persuaded a very wealthy (and extremely conservative) former student to provide $500,000 to fund the...
Since last May I've been "playing chicken" with Garrison Keillor (unbeknownst to him). As big a fan of his as I've been over the years, would I really be willing to lay down $40 to see his one man show in Oxford?
As March 18, the day of the performance, approached, the pressure mounted. What comments would he make about Miami University? What song would he have his audience sing? To find out, I would need to buy a ticket.
Finally, about 6 hours before the show, I flinched. I relented and purchased a ticket.
It turned out to be a great show, full of stories, sonnets, and songs. My favorite line was his reference to contemporary praise and worship anthems as "7/11 songs"---7 words repeated 11 times.
The monologue culminated with a retelling of the main plotline of his novel Pontoon.
I enjoyed that book, and it was fun to hear him rehearse the story personally.
I found out yesterday that there's a third campus lecture scheduled for 7:30 PM on April 2---a physicist talking about antimatter.
It will be interesting to see what happens in Oxford on April 2. When a lecture on antimatter coincides with two other lectures that matter, the results could be cataclysmic.
At Miami University spring break has come and gone. There are seven weeks of class left in the spring semester, then final exams.
One thing that I enjoy about this part of the academic year is that lots of campus lectures are typically scheduled for March and April.
This year is no exception. Garrison Keillor is coming this week, Salman Rushdie next week.
Sometimes two good lectures are scheduled at the same time. On April 2, there's going to be an AIA archaeology lecture in Oxford at 7:30 PM. At the same time, eminent Lincoln scholar Allen Guelzo will be speaking on the Hamilton campus about Lincoln as a philosopher. I"m leaning toward going to the Guelzo lecture. I've seen him speak on BookTV, and he's an excellent speaker.
But the lecture i'm most looking forward to is the one by Walter Kaiser, one of my favorite Bible scholars. He'll be giving a lecture called "Archaeology and the Bible: The Top 15 Finds" on March 28.
