Jeremy Thompson

Category: Personal

  • I hate Joyce’s Ulysses

    I finally decided. I hate it. I think I understand why someone might like it. The stream of consciousness writing style mimics what is supposed to be going on in our own minds or some such, and that’s novel. Maybe even cool. Daniel Dennett even uses it as a metaphor for what consciousness is really…

  • “Through my most grievious fault”

    Since the most recent changes to the Roman Missal almost every Sunday we’ve been saying: through my fault, through my fault, through my most grievous fault; … I’ve noticed that in our congregation almost everyone says “grievious” as opposed to “grievous.” I knew that sometimes speakers insert an “-i-” into words like “grievous” and “mischievous.”…

  • Suicide: Biology, Sociology and Religion

    I have formally studied both psychology and biblical studies, which has entailed somewhat the study of religion in general. Over the last several days I’ve seen a considerable amount of discussion of suicide related to both psychology and religion, some of which has been heplful and some not with some of the unhelpful discussion being…

  • If facebook had a “turn memes off” button

    Would you push it? I might a lot of days. I say that as someone who has posted my fair share. I still laugh at quite a few. But, some days it’s a lot like hearing nothing but knock-knock jokes over and over again. Steven Pinker offered some words about one-liners in How the Mind…

  • Imagine the situation in reverse – Critical thinking 101 (Re: Phil Robertson)

    I’m not commenting here because I have any great stake in the matter. I don’t even have cable and only have the vaguest notion of what a duck dynasty is. I’m not sure where I picked up this adage — I’m guessing somewhere in my last 15 years of formal and informal schooling, but one…

  • The 10 book meme – my version

    This is my version of the meme going around on Facebook (not that anyone asked) to name 10 books that have stuck with you without thinking too much about it: Ecclesiastes – unknown Night – Elie Wiesel The Hound of the Baskervilles – Arthur Conan Doyle Introduction to Christianity – Joseph Ratzinger (or Truth Tolerance…

  • She’s put up with me for 11 years now …

    and I love her more than anything in the world. Happy anniversary, Erica!

  • Learning python with O’reilly school

    Over the last year, I’ve taken two courses in Python programming through the O’reilly School of Technology (yes, the same people that publish those programming books). I don’t think I’ve blogged too much about that experience. Before going with O’reilly, I tried out Code Academy.  That’s as good a jumping off point as I know…

  • “Holocaust” as translation value

    The best SBL presentation I attended this year, hands down, was by Shira Leibowitz Schmidt. It was entitled “Translating Biblical Verses in Rabbinic Holocaust Memoirs.”  One of the particular translation values she talked about was “holocaust” for some words that many modern Bible translations render as “whole burnt offering.”  Many Holocaust survivors dislike “holocaust” as…

  • Why I finished my PhD

    Peter Enns has written a post making its way around my Facebook thread entitled are PhD programs in biblical studies ethical? a final thought from SBL. This is obviously a complex issue, but I see posts like this often enough that I’ve wanted to sit down and blog my experience for quite a while.  When I…