Running late

I have been wondering if I would do a detailed blog list - it is a lot of work keeping up the blogging. I note that this year's (actually next year's) John Albert Hall lectures will be given by Janet Soskice. It turns out that most female scholars that I know of don't have blogs though some have books and lots of them seem to know my daughter who also doesn't blog. Sarah Coakley did the JAH lectures in 2007 - it was an introduction to priestly theology and the liminal role of the priest in the Eucharist that was as complex a set of lectures as I have ever heard. While looking for blogs I noted this one with some nice poetry. But my blog list is bursting and I refuse to read some that are famous because it's not opinions nor is it the confession of the obvious that I want from blogs or anywhere else.

I read some good and some bad books on my holiday. I was disappointed in David Adams Richards 'God Is'. It is simply poorly conceived, badly written, and marks an editor's failure. I read Jesus and Yahweh by Harold Bloom and have made 16 pages of notes which I may condense... Bloom is a delightful writer and I even delight that I disagree with most of his inferences. What do I find in his writing then? A real person, as opinionated about Judaism as Richards is about Roman Catholicism but Bloom is focused, and his work has cracks and crevasses (is it really spelt that way!) where the light can shine or might even emerge. I am being unfair to Richards - he does have a few good notes - but too many non-sequiturs, too many fragments, too many grammatical errors, and too many typos. (A second edition will not save it - it needs a story which I am told he is good at.)

I have finally caught up on the 500 unread posts and this time I read many of them.

Other females from whose writing or speeches I have learned:

• Susannah Ticciati - full marks for her delightful 'Job and the Disruption of Identity'.
• Tikva Frymer-Kensky, leading contributor to 'Christianity in Jewish Terms'.
• Jody Magness from whom I learned a bit about the Dead Sea Scrolls
• Carolyn Osiek - in 'Families in the New Testament World'.
• Mary Coloe whose books on John are very helpful and well written.
• Morna Hooker, who addressed us at Hebrew 2006 and I have read and enjoyed some of her work.
• and Elizabeth Schlussle Fiorenza whose book on Revelation I read some years ago.

Not very many compared with all those male writers whose work I have sampled. It's not my fault I was born male.

Of course I must mention April who I met briefly in San Diego, and Suzanne who lives across the straits from me and Macrina (now alas offline) and Rachel, the Velveteen Rabbi and the Everyday Thomist and Irshad Manji (whom I have not heard from for a while) and Julia M Obrien. Some of these I have not met except perhaps through shared comments, but I look forward to the possibility someday.