Nicholas

The ancients thought of celestial events as signs from the gods. Augustus interpreted a comet in 44 BCE as Caesar’s soul ascending to the heavens, thus marking the deification of Julius Caesar, his uncle. A temple in Rome was dedicated to Deified Julius which included a statue of Caesar with a comet affixed to his forehead. Many coins were issued h... See more

The fact is that almost NO philosopher defends these strong foundationalist epistemologies. But almost NO philosopher denies that both everyday and scientific discourse are guided by reasonably reliably, pragmatic, effective standards. Both philosophical positions these days are found somewhere in the middle.

What distinguishes so-called postmoderni... See more

Through the ignorance of the historical background of Paul’s epistle to the Romans as a whole and his instructions in Romans 13:1-7 in particular, the passage at hand has been grossly mis-read and mis-applied in numerous ways since its original composition. Instead of an argument for unthinking obedience to, approval of, and participation in govern... See more

Wright (2004: 82-88 and 2005: 69-79) emphasizes what he sees to be Paul’s anti-imperial themes throughout his writings, and I am indebted to him for the concept of Jesus’ vs. Caesar’s lordship.

‘Specialists’ and skilled administrators of the old regime could not be replaced; they had to be kept on, even at the cost of bribing them with privileges. In the town of Vyatka in 1918, for example, no fewer than 4,476 out of 4,766 officials were the same individuals who had previously served the Tsar.

A Palestinian friend of mine, Mahmoud, is currently being targeted by the state of Karlsruhe for saying the following during a protest: “Palestine is for all people, from the river to the sea, regardless of their denomination or religion.” That was enough for the state to say he had committed a hate crime by questioning Israel’s right to exist. He ... See more

You use state-of-the-art Retrieval Augmented Generation technology. How does that work?

Retrieval augmented generation (RAG) is an up and coming technique that addresses the pitfalls of large language models, particularly in the realm of AI hallucinations. It uses a mix of both good information retrieval and generative AI to generate answers which ... See more

The Westminster Study Edition of the Holy Bible (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1948).

vv. 9-20 . This section is a later addition; the original ending of Mark appears to have been lost. The best and oldest manuscripts of Mark end with ch. 16:8. Two endings were added very early.

The longer ending (3), though current in a variety of witnesses, some of them ancient, must also be judged by internal evidence to be secondary. (a) The vocabulary and style of verses 9-20 are non-Markan. (e.g. απιστεω, βλαπτω, βεβαιοω, επακολουθεω, θεαομαι, μετα ταυτα, πορευομαι, συνεργεω, υστερον are found nowhere else in Mark; and θανασιμον and ... See more