Category: Weblog

  • The Nature of Scientific Revolutions

    When they happen, scientific revolutions occur suddenly by a process that may not be completely quantifiable, a fact that partially accounts for the controversy and opposition often experienced in the historical period surrounding a given revolution (Kuhn, Scientific Revolutions 89–90, 151–52, 159; cf. Barber 97–113; Poythress 461). Although certain criteria exist, based on the broader…

  • Crisis Resolution and Scientific Revolution

    Three routes exist for crisis resolution within a normal scientific community. First, the community may forestall the crisis by proposing an adjustment to the received paradigm, provided that this adjustment is plausible enough to decrease the severity of the paradigm’s perceived inadequacies. Second, the community may, after repeated failures to explain the crisis-inducing problem(s) satisfactorily,…

  • Creation in Second Temple Judaism

    Joel Watts has a very intriguing “showcase [of] several motifs in Second Temple Jewish thought” related to the creation narrative in Genesis 1–3. To read the three-part series, click below. Part 1: Introduction Part 2: Creation Part 3: Seven Days As a whole, the series “survey[s] . . . how certain authors interpreted and perhaps…

  • Payne on Vaticanus’s Distigmai

    Today, Philip Payne concludes his critique of Peter Head’s contention that the distigmai in Vaticanus “mark[] textual variation” and “belong to one unified system that was added some time in the 16th century.” To read the series in five parts, click below. Part 1: Introduction Part 2: Diple Part 3: Small Numbers, Large Numbers, and…

  • Online Research in Biblical Studies

    I have been asked to produce a resource for distance education students who may have more difficulty than on-campus students with accessing traditional research venues like the brick-and-mortar library. To that end, this blog now has an Online Research page, part of which subsumes and expands the old, Other Websites page. I have tried to…

  • Logos Partners with Baker

    This morning, Logos Bible Software announced an agreement with Baker Books that will soon allow Logos to bring “hundreds” of Baker titles into pre-publication. According to Logos’s normal procedure, once available on the Pre-Pub page, production will begin on a given title once a sufficient number of people have ordered that title at the Pre-Pub…