Hershel Shanks, the Lake of Fire, A. Y. Collins, and reading Revelation

I just received in my email a link to a short online article by A. Y. Collins. Apparently Shanks had discussion with the Gideon's and they warned him he's heading for the lake of fire. Link here.

While I have great respect for A. Y. Collins' work, I'm quite frankly surprised by this little article. First, on the surface it makes no sense. Shanks is Jewish, he doesn't believe in the inspiration of Revelation, so what does he care what the lake of fire means in Revelation?

Second, Collins' reading is faulty in my opinion. She argues that those who get cast into the lake of fire are judged on works and "primarily as those who break the Ten Commandments." For some reason Collins decided not to read chapter 20 in the context of the whole book. 20:15 clearly states anyone not written in the book of life. What book of life? The Lamb's book of life (21:27). And what do we know of this lamb? Well he is the shepherd and his blood makes their robes white (7:14, 17), and he was slaughtered (5:12). Hmm, I wonder who this lamb is?


Shanks (and Collins) is of course free to believe whatever he wants, just like every human being. But that doesn't mean you have to distort the message of Revelation. Read it carefully, understand what it means, and then decide whether you believe it or not.

Thoughts on my iPad

Some have wondered whether the iPad is simply a novelty toy - nice but not necessary. After living with it for a semester now, let me tell you that the Ipad is not only fun, it is changing how I work and how I teach.

ACADEMICS
As far as academics and work, I haven't carried a laptop for 4 months now. The iPad really has replaced my laptop. It hasn't replaced my computer needs all together, but I've moved to a desktop/iPad combo, and it is bliss.

Next, I am ready and eager to welcome Accordance to my iPad. I will soon be doing serious scholarly research directly on it.

Same goes for academic reading. Sente (a bibliographic manager) is on the cusp of releasing an iPad app that will provide a stunning app for reading articles and taking notes on them.


TEACHING
In the past semester I taught a Greek course exclusively from my iPad. It went off without a hitch. More than that though, it was actually a SUPERIOR experience to any other options. On campus, I make heavy use of a SMART sympodium in order to interact with screen content (digital whiteboard). With the great little program called "2Screens" I have the same functionality as my SMART sympodium — with MORE colors, and at a MUCH cheaper price.

Furthermore, Keynote on the iPad does a great job, especially since the last update.

Beyond presentation, I am able to carry with me hundreds of documents, my Bible, etc., all on the iPad. Everything is ready to access in class in a split second.

There is truly no going back for me. I don't have a laptop any more and I don't need one. I hope you get one soon and I hope you love it as much as I do.

review of Accordance

The man who doesn't sleep, David Instone-Brewer, has posted a nice review of Accordance, the cadillac of Bible Software. Check it out. http://www.tyndale.cam.ac.uk/index.php?page=tyndale-tech&add=http://tyndaletech.blogspot.com/2010/12/accordance-tips.html

The 20 most influential Christians - really?

I found this page via Greg Boyd's blog, who happens to be on the list. What I want to know is, who picked this list ?! Boy would my list look different ! What about yours?

http://www.superscholar.org/features/20-most-influential-christian-scholars/

Higgaion feed

Since I asked a favor of some bloggers to let the world know my feed had changed, I better do the same for others. The Higgaion blog feed is now feed://drchris.me/higgaion/?feed=rss2

The Spicy Greek New Testament

The deindesaur blog

I've been away from my blog for a long time, for which I apologize (if anyone is still reading!) But I'm hoping to bring back blogging with a little more regularlity. I'll start with making some comments on SBL - since this seems to be the biblioblogger script that we are all to follow!

Highlights:
- buying some great books. I can't wait to get into Michael Licona's resurrection book
- I ended up having two great conversations at IBR. The first was with Michael Licona, the second was with Darrell Bock and Craig Keener.
- I had a great steak dinner with my vater Mike Bird.
- Kregel advertised my Greek Songs. I'll post more on this once they are actually for sale online.
- Having a room to myself. My semester is so busy that SBL becomes some great downtime for this introvert.
- Heard some good papers in the Matthew section and historical Jesus section.
- sitting on the NAPH panel discussing 2 new grammars. I enjoyed this even more than I thought I would. It is great to know that SBL isn't just about the latest cutting edge ideas, but helping each other to teach better too!


Probably my best buy this year is Stan Porter's brand new "Inking the Deal: A Guide for Successful Academic Publishing". (Amazon.com or Amazon.ca) I've been waiting for a book like this to come out and I don't consider it an exaggeration to say that EVERY PhD student should read this (and MA's going in to PhD programs too). Thank you Stan for writing this book! I devoured the whole thing, and will be recommending it to anyone I come across! And I'm taking its advice right away - I intend to turn my panel participation into a book review :-)

More regular posting to come folks! In the meantime, take my advice and by Porter's book (links are above).