Author: Jim F.

Jim Faulconer blogged at Times and Seasons from 2004 to 2007. He currently blogs at Feast Upon the Word and cross-posts lesson material to T&S. Jim is a professor of philosophy at Brigham Young University, where he holds the Richard L. Evans Chair of Religious Understanding. He is the husband of Janice Allen, the father of four and grandfather of eleven. His academic specialty is 20th-century European philosophy, particulary the philosophy of Martin Heidegger and some of his French acolytes. Jim's hobbies are playing with grandchildren, cooking (and, therefore, also eating), travel, and New Testament studies, and for none of them is there sufficient time.

Salting the water

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If you’ve had any cooking training, you almost certainly were told to salt the water in which you cook vegetables. It turns out that, objectively/scientifically, it doesn’t matter whether you do.

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JEF Sunday School Lesson 13

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Lesson 13: Exodus 1-3, 5-6, 11-14 Before looking in detail at the scriptures for this week, consider these parallels between the story of Moses’s life and the story of Israel’s experience:

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And Justice for All

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I apologize in advance for writing about a topic that is at least closely related to, if not the same as Nate’s. But it is his fault. He made me start thinking about the question of freedom and its relation to justice.

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ISPART Becomes Maxwell Institute

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BYU announces that the Institute for the Preservation of Ancient Texts–the umbrella organization for FARMS, the Middle Eastern Texts Initiative, the Center for the Preservation of Ancient Texts, and other entities–has a new name: the Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship. I doubt that the general character of that name is an accident, and I like what it portends.

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Hermeneutics

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That’s a 25 cent word if there ever was one, something for college kids to show Mom and Dad to prove they got something for their money, something a grad student to lord it over others with in the commons.

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Congratulations Wilfried!

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It is with no small amount of pride that we remind our readers that Wilfried Decoo, one of our permabloggers, has been voted Best Blogger of 2005 and that one of his posts has been voted the Best Blog of 2005 (here). Wilfried brings to each of his posts his gentle personality and his erudition. But the most important thing he brings is his memory and his ability to write about those vignettes of memory in a way that reaches us all. They are thought-provoking without being critical in the negative sense. They are moving without being saccharine. Thanks, Wilfried, and congratulations.

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Dear Jane

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Dear Jane, I don’t know you—at least I don’t think I do—but I have been struck by your willingness to speak openly and honestly about your situation. My Sikh friends speak of “seekers.” You are genuinely a seeker and, so, a person deserving of respect, including the respect of response. However, I haven’t had anything to say in response until now when you ask, “Does the gospel make sense (comment 23)?”

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