Many thanks to everyone who volunteered to help out with the transition to the new blog site.  The response was overwhelming.   I now have more than I need and have contacted them about further instructions.  But there will almost certainly be more needs down the line, as we try to grow this thing and develop more outreach.  When that happens, I will let you know about other opportunities to help out. Speaking of outreach: if you know anyone who is interested in the sorts of things the blog has to offer, do let them know about it!    We grow mainly by word of mouth -- or, luckily in these problematic days of actual contact, by word of texting, email, twitter, and other social media.   But do let family, friends, neighbors, acquaintances, and complete strangers know about the blog, so we can reach all who might be interested.

As some/many/all? of you know, we are getting ready to relaunch the blog with a completely new rebuild that Steven Ray, my able and talented assistant for all these years, has designed -- after he had come up with the original one eight years ago.  He has been keeping the old one going with bailing wire and duct tape.  The new one looks *great*.  We hope to roll it out soon.   And I'll explain it all to you even sooner, before it happens.  I think you're going to agree, it is terrific. Before we can do it, I have to have some of my old posts reclassified into a few of the new categories that I have devised (to supplement the old ones).   I need a volunteer to do it.  It will take some hours.  No clue how many.  If I have several volunteers, even better.  I won't go into all the details here: simple story, it will involve looking at an old post, seeing what it's about (you wouldn't need to read the entire [...]

Those of you who were planning to go have probably been notified, but in any event: The Smithsonian lectures on Heaven and Hell scheduled for tomorrow (Saturday March 14) have now been cancelled. Keep safe!

I hope all of you are well and staying away from viruses.  As it turns out, just now I’m reading On the Beach, a fantastic 1957 novel set in 1963 about what happens “after the war,” when the northern hemisphere has destroyed itself with a massive nuclear exchange, and the people of Melbourne are waiting as the radiation cloud is slowly heading their way over the course of months, with nothing to stop it.  (I’m reading novels like this, and watching comparable films, as I’m thinking about my next book Expecting Armageddon.)    Suddenly this morning I realized (duh!) how timely it is, mutatis mutandis.  Maybe I’ll blog on such things. But for now!  Our new companion Corona has disrupted many of our lives and is certain to disrupt virtually all of them.  Please accept my hopeful thoughts that the disruptions you experience are merely inconvenient and not debilitating, either physically, financially, socially, or emotionally. Some of my immediate trips and lectures have been cancelled (well, postponed for a year or so!), and I wanted [...]

On March 13, I will be holding a fund-raising dinner for the blog in Washington DC from 7:00 - 9:00 pm..  It will be at a nice restaurant to be named later (either the Bistro Bis at the Kimpton Hotel George or somewhere near by).  We will have a maximum of seven places at the table (along with me, making eight). For the fund-raising:  the event is $200 per plate, the money to be donated directly to the blog.    Each person will also pay for his or her own meal. There will be no set agenda for the dinner.  It will be a chance to get to meet each other and talk about matters of mutual interest and importance, especially as they relate to the blog –anything connected, even remotely, with the New Testament and early Christianity.  The basic idea is that you will be able to pick my brain at will, and I may pick yours.  We did a similar event in December in Durham, and a good time was had by all.  Or [...]