My wife and I found out yesterday evening that one of our family members passed away after a year and half battle with pancreatic cancer. Brent Bencaz will be remembered for a lot of things, but most of all for his cheerfulness and his smile. He will be sorely missed by his family members. I realize that most of my posts are about educational matters, but today I ask for your prayers for the family as we grieve and also remember good times over the coming days. May Brent rest in peace and may perpetual light shine upon him. Read More...

Tags: Personal

So, I've started an e-mail list on my site. And, it seems to be going really well so far. I've gotten quite a number of sign-ups from people all around the world. I've put together what I think is a pretty cool free report for those who join entitled "Study the OT for Free." It basically goes through how a person can get a university level understanding of the Old Testament using only free courses that can be found on the internet. That is about 36 credit hours worth of classes. Read More...

Tags: Updates

I know that I have written this in a couple of other places on the site, but I wanted to write a blog post just saying thanks to University of California Television and Villanova University for providing great video content on YouTube. I have put quite a number of their videos on the courses page of this site, and I just keep finding more and more useful information from them. I couldn't believe that I was able to find video lectures from the likes of Robert Alter, Jon Levenson, Lawrence Schiffman, and even David Noel Freedman. These are some of the top scholars in the area of Biblical Studies. Please be sure to check out University of California Television and Villanova University on YouTube. They have a lot of other interesting content as well outside of the area of Biblical Studies. I do not know that anyone involved with posting the videos will ever read this post, but in case you do, thanks a lot and keep up the good work. Read More...

Tags: Personal

It seems that a lot of you came to the site yesterday to see the video of Jon D. Leveson teaching about Abraham in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. So, I figured you must all like Levenson. In that case, I have posted another video by Levenson today on The Aqedah, or The Binding of Isaac. Unfortunately, this is the only other Levenson video that I could find; however, it is a long one. So, enjoy:

Levenson on The Aqedah Read More...

Tags: Old Testament Study

Once again the University of California Television program has provided a helpful video for the study of matters related to the Old Testament/Hebrew Bible. Below is a link to a video they put together in which Jon D Levenson of Harvard University discusses Abraham in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. It is often said that Abraham is a figure that unites these three faiths. However, Levenson discusses how he both unites and separates them. Enjoy. And, thanks again to the University of California.

Levenson on Abraham Read More...

Tags: Old Testament Study

Recently, I made a blog post on Robert Alter's translations, which are unique in their attempt to bring some issues in the Biblical Hebrew text into English. Today I found this video where you can learn about translation from Alter himself. The video is entitled Lost in Translation: The Challenge of Translating the Bible. And, it has been made available by Villanova University. Thank you to them for making it available. Check the video out here.
Read More...

Tags: Translation