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“Nobody’s Mother” with Sandra Glahn

Sandra Glahn has written a book that has a lot of people talking.  She was at the Lanier Theological Library in Houston recently and talked with David Capes on The Stone Chapel Podcasts.

To hear the podcast click here.

Who Is Sandra Glahn? 

Sandra Glahn is a professor of Media Arts and Worship at Dallas Theological Seminary.   She is a creative force behind a project, The Visual Museum of Women in Christianity (www.visualmuseum.gallery). 

It’s a project that is recovering some of the visual history of the Christian faith since its early centuries.  Ironically, some of visual history does not make it into the history books. 

Sandra is the wife of one husband for 45 years, a mother, a grandmother. She holds a PhD from University of Texas, Dallas, in the humanities.

“Nobody’s Mother”

In 2023 Sandra Glahn published a book she has been working on for quite some time.  It is entitled Nobody’s Mother: Artemis of the Ephesians in Antiquity and the New Testament (IVP Academic). 

Although she thought it might be a “woman’s book,” she found that it had attracted a lot of attention from men as well who were unsure how to read certain New Testament references.

Since the time of Jerome, Artemis had been understood to be a fertility goddess, a nurturer, a mother.  But Sandra’s research went deep into the inscriptions, texts, imagery, etc, to discoverer that she was “nobody’s mother.”

She was a hunter, filled with magic power, and often likely to kill a mother in childbirth if you ticked her off. 

Dr. Glahn draws a number of conclusions about biblical texts, like Acts 19 and 1 Timothy 2, from what she has uncovered.

Resources

Nobody’s Mother: Artemis of the Ephesians in Antiquity and the New Testament(IVP Academic, 2023). 

For the Visual Museum of Women in Christianity click here or type https://www.visualmuseum.gallery  into your browser.

Here’s Sandra’s book, Vindicating the Vixens: Revisiting Sexualized, Vilified, and Marginalized Women of the Bible (Kregel Academic, 2017).

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“Time Has Come TODAY” with Jack Wisdom

To hear the podcast (19 min.) click here.

Jack Wisdom and David Capes have been friends for a number of years.  They were elders together for a while of a downtown Houston Church.  Jack is a devoted Christian, whose life has taken a hard turn in the last year.  Perhaps more about that another time.  He stopped by the Lanier Theological Library and joined David Capes on the Stone Chapel Podcasts.

Who Is Jack Wisdom? 

Jack is a successful trial attorney who has lived in Texas for many years.  His practice centers on labor law. He was a Dallas police officer before he and his wife, Diana, moved to Massachusetts so he could study at Gordon Conwell Seminary.  He studied under some of the greats there. 

For decade Jack and his wife worked in Young Life.  He’s responsible for training, evangelizing, and bringing order to disordered teenage lives.  Now he is the author of 3 books, all of which deserve reading.

“Time Has Come Today” 

Time Has Come Today is the third book Jack Wisdom has written.  They are definitely worth reading, because they are written by a person who knows whereof he speaks.  He has studied well, works in the original languages, and combines good communication, writing, and humor.  His chapters are short, as are his books. 

Taking his cue from Texas singer-songwriter, Robert Earl Keen, Jack makes a case that each moment we live is a gift from God.  It can either be wasted by slacking off or by keeping yourself too busy.  We decide daily, by the hour, by the moment, how to live. 

We have an adversarial relationship with time because of the fall. For most people, time is an endless succession of years, months, weeks, days, and hours.  Much of that without significance.  But we can and ought to live in matters where this day, today, matters.  Something great, important, life-changing can happen today.

Watch particularly for Wisdom’s distinction between two Greek words for time: chronos and kairos.  

More Resources

Click here for a transcript of this podcast. 

Click on the title for a link to Jack’s books:

Time Has Come Today: Time, Eternity, and the Life of Joyful Urgency

Get Low: Reflections on Pride and Humility

 Breaking Good: Repentence as a Way of Life

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The Saint John’s Bible with John Ross

What were you doing around the turn of the millennium?  Anything memorable?  Anything to be proud of? 

Well, if you were a monk from Minnesota, a world class calligrapher or an artist you may have been working on the first hand-written, hand-illuminated Bible in 500 years, that is, The Saint John’s Bible.

John Ross joined David Capes on The Stone Chapel Podcasts to talk about its history, creation, and mission.  It’s a fascinating story.

To hear the podcast click here.

Who Is John Ross? 

John Ross is executive director of the Heritage Program of the Saint John’s Bible.  For three decades he served as pastor to churches in the United Church of Christ (historic Congregational churches) in Ohio and Minnesota.  

John’s church in Minnesota was gifted a Heritage copy of the Saint John’s Bible.  He saw first hand how he as a church leader could use it to bring his congregants back to Scripture.

The Saint John’s Bible

The Saint John’s Bible is a transatlantic effort.  It involves scholars, calligraphers, artists, and tons of imagination.  It is the brainchild of Don Jackson, the scribe to the House of Lords and the Queen’s Crown office.

In the 15th century the printing press was invented.   Prior to that, books like the Bible were hand-written over months and years because the materials were so expensive and the work so hard. Books were chained to library shelves and desks because they were so valuable. 

After that, books were produced by the press.  Hand-written and hand-illuminated books became a thing of the past. 

The Saint John’s Bible is a thing of beauty.  You can view images of it on the website: https://saintjohnsbible.org.

More Resources

For information about viewing a copy of the Saint John’s Bible, click here.

If you’d like to own or donate a copy to your favorite church or institution, click here.

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“Surprised by Oxford”

To hear the podcast (20 min.) click here.

Carolyn Weber is a unique woman.  A portion of her life was made into a feature length film.  It is titled Surprised by Oxford after her book of the same title published by Thomas Nelson.  Links are below.

Dr. Carolyn Weber joined David Capes on The Stone Chapel Podcast.

Who Is Carolyn Weber? 

Carolyn is originally from Canada, but she and her husband, Kent, children, chickens, and dogs live near Nashville TN.  She grew up nominally Catholic but describes herself before college as “agnostic.” 

Dr. Weber went on to earn an MPhil and DPhil at Oxford, specializing in English literature.  She also went on to fall in love and by the end of her first year at Oxford, she became a follower of Jesus.

Carolyn was helped along the way by the fellow she would marry, Kent, and by numerous other students, staff, and faculty at Oxford.  C. S. Lewis and his writings became a mainstay for her as she transitioned to faith.

Today, Carolyn teaches at a Christian classical school, New College in Franklin Tennessee.  She comes to that position with quite an academic pedigree.

Surprised by Oxford

Surprised by Oxford is a memoir of one year in Carolyn Weber’s life.  The book is thoughtfully organized according to the academic calendar of Oxford. 

It is beautifully written and carefully presented.  Like C. S. Lewis, Carolyn was a “reluctant convert.”  She came kicking and screaming into the family.  But it was those conversations, those friendships, those relationships that became key.

In this podcast Carolyn deals with the big picture of that year.  So many more details await you in the book or in the movie.  Or both!  You will enjoy this podcast.

Resources

Here is a link to her book Surprised by Oxford.

You can check out Weber’s other books here.

To watch a video on the imagination of C.S. Lewis, given by Jerry Root at The Lanier Theological Library, click here.

More Resources

For a transcript of this podcast, click here.

Want more Stone Chapel Podcasts on some great topics? Just click here.

You can get information on upcoming lectures at Lanier Theological Library by clicking here

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Lament-Shaped Perseverance

James 5:11 refers to the “patience of Job” (KJV). If we take a detour through the book of Job and notice how the Greek vocabulary of perseverance (the KJV’s “patience”) is used in James’ letter, we gain insight into human suffering as something properly to lament. Dr. Grant Flynn is Visiting Assistant Professor of New Testament at Wheaton College. His Ph.D. (Wheaton Graduate School) dealt with lament in the Epistle of James.

Check out related programs at Wheaton College:

B.A. in Classical Languages (Greek, Latin, Hebrew): https://bit.ly/3TeXZAD

M.A. in Biblical Exegesis: https://bit.ly/4ceHg9q

To hear the podcast click here.