I am an assistant professor of Hebrew Bible at Furman University in Greenville, SC. On my site you will find questions and thoughts about teaching the Bible to undergraduates, studying the Bible within academic and religious contexts, and relating ancient ethical and religious ideas to the present. There will also be an occasional entry about technology, especially the more “religious” sides of the tech world (Open Source, Privacy, Mac OS X, Linux, Free Culture, etc.).
The chap in the picture is Qohelet, the Teacher whose words are found in Ecclesiastes. His seminal insight is that the search for order in the world is limited by the horizons of human knowledge and abilities. All activities, including good things like the search for wisdom, the enjoyment of earthly delights, and the desire for property and influence, are fleeting, “a chasing after wind.” Like a fine mist or vapor, they can be experienced for a time, but never grasped, controlled, or preserved beyond their time. What is left for us mortals, Qohelet asserts, is to seek wisdom when it may be found, to enjoy what we have been given while we have it, and to embrace every moment as if it might be our last, because it just might be. The Hebrew term for “vapor, mist” is hevel, translated in the KJV and NRSV as “vanity.” One of the most potentially “vain” things you can do is write a personal weblog, so the name fits, I think. Here’s hoping that this site embodies some of the positive sense of hevel, a place for dynamic engagement between an enduring religious tradition and a world that moves so fast as it spins in place.
– Bryan Bibb
