Ancient Wisdom, Modern Faith

New Study: Online Education up 17% to 4.6 Million

mark — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 23:36:39 +0000

The 2009 Sloan Survey of Online Learning reveals that enrollment rose by nearly 17 percent from a year earlier. The survey of more than 2,500 colleges and universities in the United States finds approximately 4.6 million students were enrolled in at least one online course in fall 2008, the most recent term for which figures [...]

World of the Bible Survey

mark — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 23:37:15 +0000

The Society of Biblical Literature (of which I am a member) has just initiated a survey that will be used as part of the preparation for a new educational web site called “The World of the Bible: Exploring people, places, and passages“. Please take a few minutes and fill out the anonymous survey, as your [...]

Faculty Videos, YouTube, and iTunes U – Presentation

mark — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 00:48:29 +0000

Well, it has been a while, hasn’t it? Again. Apparently, I have had a busy fall … I gave a presentation at the 8th Hawaii International Conference on Education a couple of days ago, and it was called “Putting a Face on E-Learning: A Strategy to Integrate Faculty Videos into YouTube, iTunes U and a Virtual [...]

Introduction to World Religions now on iTunes U

mark — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 00:38:54 +0000

Well, it has been a long time since my last posting. For a number of reasons. However, I am pleased to say that there are nine world religion video summaries that are now available on iTunes U! They are a part of the RELS201 Introduction to World Religions course that I teach at [...]

New Christian Studies Courses at UNBC

mark — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 15:39:39 +0000

For those of you who have been following the development of the Certificate of Christian Studies at UNBC the last couple of years, you may be interested in knowing about the future. No, not the whole “future”, just the future of Christian Studies. The course offering will be expanding from six courses to [...]

Free Books! No, really, these are free books!

mark — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 15:08:13 +0000

Just a quick posting today. Did you know that there are about a zillion books that are freely available/downloadable online? Of course you knew that. But … did you know that over 30,000 of them are nicely categorized and searchable at Project Gutenberg? Check it out, and also look at their list of the top [...]

Monotheism vs Monolatry? What?

mark — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 15:54:57 +0000

Here is a test – does the subject line above strike you as intriguing or uninteresting? Well, believe it or not, if you identify yourself as either Jewish or Christian, you should find it interesting. Monotheism and monolatry both have to do with how the people of the Old Testament / Hebrew Bible (and also [...]

Does Cremation Send a Person to Hell?

mark — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 14:52:53 +0000

Interesting question, isn’t it? I was asked that question a few days ago, and I pointed the person to one verse and then made one observation (just a summary of our discussion!). The practice of cremation is not specifically mentioned in the Bible. However, a section in the Bible that talks about how a Christian’s [...]

Have you ever seen a 1,600 Year Old Manuscript of the Bible?

mark — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 21:59:39 +0000

Have you ever wanted to look at a 1,600 year old manuscript of the Bible? If so, you can now go to Codex Sinaiticus and view digital images of the actual pages of the ancient codex. It is pretty impressive, especially since the actual pages themselves are stored in various locations around the world and [...]

Worldwide Classroom

mark — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 15:59:19 +0000

Mixed in with all of the useless stuff on the Internet, there are occasionally some great resources. And Covenant Theological Seminary’s Worldwide Classroom is definitely one of the good ones! They provide FREE lecture manuscripts, study guides and mp3’s for twenty courses in spirituality, Biblical studies, theology, ministry, etc. If you are looking to deepen [...]