timwhatley's recent activity
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Comment on What did you do this week (and weekend)? in ~talk
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Comment on What are you reading these days? in ~books
timwhatley LinkI am reading In Search of Lost Time by Marcel Proust and Cosmos by Carl Sagan. The former is unbelievably cozy so far, and if the prose continues in quality over the next seven volumes then I...I am reading In Search of Lost Time by Marcel Proust and Cosmos by Carl Sagan. The former is unbelievably cozy so far, and if the prose continues in quality over the next seven volumes then I anticipate this becoming my favorite novel of all time. I've neglected Proust for far too long. The latter is incredibly informative, especially since I haven't had any formalized scientific education since before I was an undergraduate -- and I'm in graduate school now, so it's been quite some time. In any case, I strongly recommend both, albeit for very different reasons. If you want a challenging, lengthy, and literary read, choose Proust. If you want an introductory survey on the history of science, choose Sagan.
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Comment on What are you reading these days? in ~books
timwhatley LinkCurrently reading Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why by Prof Bart D. Ehrman. Very interesting read! As a disclaimer, Ehrman is not a Christian, nor am I, but he's...Currently reading Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why by Prof Bart D. Ehrman. Very interesting read! As a disclaimer, Ehrman is not a Christian, nor am I, but he's probably the most famous academic biblical scholar working today by virtue of the fact that his works are primarily targeted toward the general (non-scholarly) population.
The book is a primer on the field of textual criticism. Essentially, it describes the history of New Testament manuscripts, emphasizing how it was copied by hand mostly by non-professional scribes for the first few hundred years of its history. Ehrman shares the scholarly consensus that various early scribes altered New Testament manuscripts both intentionally and unintentionally, for various reasons -- most surprisingly to me, one such non-original addition is the "let he who is without sin cast the first stone" story from Luke -- and he shares how scholars today have tried to reconstruct, as best as possible, the "original" texts from the original manuscripts (which have been lost to time).
It's a very in-depth, very informative, surprisingly gripping read, so I recommend it for anyone even vaguely interested in academic biblical studies, religious history, or religion in general.
My friends and I trekked out to Big Bend National Park for two days of hiking, and it's given me National Park and roadtrip fever. The park is very remote -- the nearest town is an hour away and boasts a population of 300 -- but the drive there is incredibly scenic, as is the park itself. We had unimaginable visibility, easily viewing mountains hundreds of miles away and across the border into Mexico, not to mention the entire Milky Way at night time. We had to restrict our hikes to the early morning because of the Texas summer, but it was cooler at the park than it was in Austin, and there were very few people in the park, so we had all of our hikes to ourselves. I strongly recommend the park if you're willing to make the journey out to the middle of nowhere.