MetaCatholic

David has convinced Jim West (who he failed to tag) that he’s one hippopotamus short of a mud-bath with his latest meme. However, he has tagged me with it and here are the rules:

a. Tag five Biblical studies bloggers.
b. Invent fictional posts that they might have written over the last month.
c. Link to this post.

So I would like to nominate these people for the said posts. I would not claim they are fictional, so much as a prophetic intuition of mysteries waiting to be revealed. Apologies to anyone (except Jim) tagged for a second time.

Jim West: Zwingli contra Lingamish: die Wichtigkeit der Bibel in ihren ursprünglichen Sprachen.

Suzanne McCarthy: Gruesome Grudem and the cephalic captivity of women in the church

Mark Goodacre: Time Lord history: why we don’t need to postulate an ur-Doctor to reconcile the different stories.

Tim Ricchuiti: Obama or McCain – who’s the better textual critic?

James McGrath: Lost in the Bible: desert experiences and the mythologies of faith

You wait. One day these posts will come.

A big thank you to James McGrath for honouring MetaCatholic with a blogging award. This is an award for blogs that make me think and make my day.  (Isn’t it fascinating how in the past indicative that’s a compliment, and in the present imperative it’s a threat.) This one seems to have spread across quite a wide range of blogs, so I’m especially flattered to receive it. The rules are simple:

1) Write a post with links to 5 blogs that make me think and/or make my day.

2) Acknowledge the post of the award giver.

3) Tell the award winners that they have won by commenting on their blogs with the news!

I should say, at this point, that I’m enjoying backtracking this award and discovering some new (to me) and interesting blogs. You may find the same worth doing.

Like James, I find it particularly difficult to whittle it down to five, but here goes (in no particular order).

• Jon Birch for the ever-stimulating Adventures of ASBO Jesus (non-UK readers, an ASBO is an anti-social behaviour order).
• John Hobbins of Ancient Hebrew Poetry for engaging my attention in areas I didn’t know I was interested in.
• Andrew Brown, a journalist whose thoughts are always worth reading, and whose posts both around religion and science and the reporting of religion are particularly stimulating.
• Halden, of Inhabitatio Dei, who often takes a conventional topic and manages to find the unconventional slant on it (and who also seems to find the same things funny as I do).
• Finally, last, but by no means least, for those as fascinated by words as I am, Separated by a Common Language is an often wry, always interesting take on the different ways we fail to communicate across the pond.

I hope, if you’ve not encountered any of them before, you will enjoy them as much as I do.

I’ve meant to get around to Ben’s One Movie Meme for ages, so here’s my contribution.

1. One movie that made you laugh
There’s Something about Mary

2. One movie that made you cry
Shadowlands

3. One movie you loved when you were a child
Batman – The Movie (i.e. Adam West and Burt Ward)

4. One movie you’ve seen more than once
Wargames

5. One movie you loved, but were embarrassed to admit it
The Faculty

6. One movie you hated
Derek Jarman’s Jubilee 

7. One movie that scared you
Carrie

8. One movie that bored you
The Texas Chain Saw Massacre

9. One movie that made you happy
Amélie

10. One movie that made you miserable
Road to Perdition

11. One movie you weren’t brave enough to see
I might be kidding myself when I say, “I can’t think of one – It’s just that I don’t much like horror films

Eddie has tagged me with a meme of his own devising. The rules appear simple: name your impossible dream, and then tag some more folk.

Oh, dear, I mean I am so full of impossible dreams, from scoring a hat-trick for England – preferably against Germany, through to fronting a sell-out indie concert at Wembley. But deep down, I still nurture that desire to write the book that turns Pauline scholarship on its head, and becomes the book that everyone simply has to refer to. It carries on the back endorsements like “This is the book I wish I’d had the imagination, courage, and depth of understanding to write” from scholars as diverse as Dale Martin and Tom Wright. The biggest snag is I have absolutely no idea what such a book could contain.

I tag John Hobbins, ElShaddai Edwards, Peter Kirk and Iyov.