Welcome to my blog roll Calvinolatry and the Dunedin School

I don't know what this thing is for Calvin around the Biblioblogosphere. It's bad enough he's the focus of a book chapter I'm working on or supposed to be working on anyway when I can find a gap in my life. Believe me, I don't find Calvin pleasant company, no doubt much to Roland's and Jim's consternation. But I'm pleased to discover that James Harding down at Dunedin has now joined us all online with a new blog called Calvinolatry. So I'm adding it to my blog roll. And his first post is on the David and Jonathan story from 1 Samuel, a little taste of his excellent paper in Newcastle. And here's a little snippet

But here's an interesting thought. Would Zehnder have offered the disclaimer had he been exegeting Ezek 16; 23? Would his implied reader be as offended by the language there as by David's imaginary hard-on in 1 Sam 20:41 and Jonathan's mythical membrum virilis in 2 Sam 1:22? Would the same implied reader be more offended by talk of men whose "cocks were like those of stallions" (Ezek 23:20) or by the just God having his daughter/wife stripped and thrown to enemy soldiers to be raped? Whose genitals need protecting and from whom?

James is from the University of Otago in Dunedin and he and some of the others there have set up a group blog called the Dunedin School which I've also added to my blog roll. It was set up last month and they even have me in their blog roll but no one bothered to tell me. I've only had a skim through but it looks like some really excellent stuff there.

Also I really like Fred Clark's work at Slacktivist and not just his Left Behind series (which has been going for about 6 years I think). But checking it out tonight I find a really lovely story about a preacher throwing a surprise birthday party for a prostitute in a 'greasy spoon' joint, Charity, conclusions and cake. I recommend it and here's a sample

After the party, Harry is surprised to learn that Tony is a preacher.

"What kind of church do you belong to?"

"I belong to a church that throws birthday parties for prostitutes at 3:30 in the morning."

We can either take offense or we can give a party. It has to be one or the other, we can't do both.

I prefer the one with cake.

I'm also one for parties and I agree with Fred, I prefer the one with the cake.

And finally I was planning to write a follow-up post to my same sex marriage piece from earlier this week but the new blog additions circumvented me. I might still start it tonight but I can't see it being published tonight. But, God willing, it will be up over the weekend.