Die Kultfigur Bernd das Brot hat es aus Deutschland auf den US-Bildschirm geschafft. Politshow-Moderator John Oliver stellte das griesgrämige Kastenbrot begeistert vor und plauderte mit dem weniger begeisterten Bernd.

New issue of Journal of Semitic Studies Vol. 70, No. 2 (2025) academic.oup.com/jss/issue/70/2 @oxfordacademic.bsky.social @safaitic.bsky.social

Absolutely! Volumes of the CSWR's new series, Texts & Translations of Transcendence & Transformation (4T), are released concurrently as open-access PDFs and affordable, but appealing, hard copies. My book is already avail., and the next (Muller, Porphyry) will be by year's end.

Old Georgian word of the day კუნესაჲ groan(ing), sigh(ing) as in Hippolytus, Comm. Song of Songs (ed. Garitte), 62.13-14 განიდევნნეს სალმობანი კუნესანი და მწუხარებანი "pains, sighs, and sorrows have been driven out"

Out now: New issue of MTSR featuring a symposium on @feelingtheory.bsky.social's WILD EXPERIMENT, in which @maiakotro.bsky.social and I take the opportunity to fire off some long-simmering hot takes on how J. Z. Smith is used in discussions about comparison as a method. brill.com/view/journal...

Came home from traveling and found this in my post!! What a strange feeling to finally have the actual published book in my hands. 🤯 brill.com/display/titl...

🤮

Plate with Plums and Morello Cherries, c. 1631 Juan van der Hamen y León (Museo Nacional del Prado)

Think I've just had my first encounter with LLM-fabricated language data. Some Indonesian paper mill journal just published a paper containing completely fabricated Siwi data, citing me as the source. (It could have been made up by a human, but it looks like what you get when you ask ChatGPT.)

heofon-hwealf, f.n: vault of heaven. (HEH-o-von-HWEH-alf / ˈhɛɔ-vɔn-ˌhwɛalf) Image: Rohan Hours; Angers, c. 1430-1435; @labnf.bsky.social Latin 9471, f. 109v. #OldEnglish #WOTD

A great challenge to index The Claremont Run: Subverting Gender in the X-Men by J. Andrew Deman @claremontrun.bsky.social. Eight indexers have made indexes to this, with author permission, including original indexer @closereadingie.bsky.social. An amazing experience. @indexers.bsky.social #SIConf25

Old Georgian word of the day ფურცელი leaf as in Hippolytus, Comm. Song of Songs (ed. Garitte), 62.17-18 არღარა ფურცელი ლეღჳსაჲ მისა სამოსელ, არამედ სულისა წმიდისა მიერ შემოსილ "a fig leaf is no longer her garment: rather, she's clothed by the holy spirit"

55 years ago today (Fillmore East)

"giant snake guarding a special pearl, a magic sleeping spell, a missive that flies & speaks, & a shining garment that grants ... self-insight"–new translation from Syriac & Greek of the so-called " #Gnostic" 'Hymn of the Pearl' from @harvarddivinity.bsky.social cswr.hds.harvard.edu/news/2025/09...

The digital version of God, Slavery, and Early Christianity is officially out! If you're interested in ancient Mediterranean slavery's effects on Christian thought and practice, this is for you. www.cambridge.org/core/books/g...

Old Georgian word of the day განზავებული mixed (განზავება mix) as in Hippolytus, Comm. Song of Songs (ed. Garitte), 62.8-9 სუ ვითარცა ღჳნოჲ … ახალი სასუმელი განზავებული "like wine, drink … a new mixed drink"

finally had time today to sit down w the summer issue of JOURNAL OF EARLY CHRISTIAN STUDIES and friends do not miss this piece by Christine Luckritz Marquis muse.jhu.edu/pub/1/articl...

"L'intérêt que présente à la linguistique le géorgien, est reconnu par tous. Cette langue d'une structure très originale a l'avantage de posséder une tradition littéraire ininterrompue de 1500 ans." H. Vogt, "Esquisse d'une gram. du géorgien mod.," Norsk Tidsskrift for Sprogvidenskap 9 (1938): 5

A 16th century #dog collar and leash. A very fancy one too. (Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien)

nosu, f.n: nose. (NO-zuh / ˈnɔ-zʌ) Image: Bible; France, c. 1270-1290; Bibliothèque d'Agglomération de Saint-Omer, Ms. 5, f. 246r. #OldEnglish #WOTD

Forthcoming: Soqotra, Mahra, and Dhofar Studies in Modern South Arabian Languages and Oral Literatures. A Volume in Honor of Vitaly Naumkin brill.com/display/titl...

This is an area you can push back in your own community, if you live in one of cities listed in the solicitation in this story. Talk to city council and state reps, as well as local landlords and organizers. Create pressure preemptively to keep them from using private spaces. Cities include... [1/2]

Worth it for the title alone!

BREAKING: Disney+ is to replace the two-season run of Andor with a recut version that runs for only five minutes, and is just Mon Mothma apologising profusely to Darth Vader for any inconvenience, and letting him have whatever he wants.

HMML’s latest exhibition—“Preserving Pages: 60 Years of Sharing the World’s Handwritten Past”—is live! Online: hmml.org/programs/exhibitions/preserving-pages/ In person: visit HMML in Collegeville, Minnesota. Admission is free and open to the public: hmml.org/programs/exhibitions/#hmml

who scribbled all night rocking and rolling over lofty incantations which in the yellow morning were stanzas of gibberish,

"My patron saint is fighting with a ghost He's always off somewhere when I need him most" ("Abandoned Love")

The family of Demartravion “Trey” Reed is seeking an independent autopsy following the Delta State University student’s death on Monday, when his body was found hanging in a tree on campus. buff.ly/4tv2FgO

Two-week winter school on #Nabataean, #Dadanitic, #epigraphic field methods in AlUla 🇸🇦 (ancient Dedan, near ancient Hegra). For a small number of graduate students, deadline to apply is 6 October. More information: www.middleeast.ugent.be/en/aicap-win...

Old Georgian word of the day ზეგარდამო coming down from above (adv) as in Jn Moschos, Leimonarion, ed. Abuladze, 5.1 ჴმაჲ გალობისაჲ ზეგარდამო გუესმოდა "we kept hearing the sound of a song coming from above"

just did a fun podcast interview about GOSPEL THRILLERS so I thought i'd remind blooskie: i wrote a book! GOSPEL THRILLERS! it's a fun, somewhat quirky dive into fiction, conspiracy, and the Bible in (mainly) US culture! available wherever you like to get books! www.google.com/books/editio...

In After Transformation, @maiakotro.bsky.social offers a lyrical history of Christian late antiquity as it lives on in and with the present. Read the intro for free now. buff.ly/TNIwz7k

A review in @theguardian.com piqued my interest in 'Transcendence for Beginners' by Clare Carlisle. The preview on @fitzcarraldoeds.bsky.social isn’t representative. There's much more to the book. I skimmed through a copy in a bookshop and was intrigued to read more. Don’t expect a systematic intro

The Natural (1984)

I'm grateful for these lines from @themountaingoats.bsky.social that were a felicitous lead-in to discussing some Syriac features of The Pearlsong (p. 171).

A fabulous looking new book from Tonicha Upham exploring all the Arabic and Persian evidence on Rus burials and sacrifices, complete with translations! #medievalsky #vikings www.cambridge.org/core/element...

Old Georgian word of the day ცადება let, allow, grant Limonarion, ed. Abuladze, 4.22 მაცადეთ უკუე სამ დღე "okay, give me three days" მ-ა-ცად-ე-თ aor imv 2p O1 For more, including a Lynyrd Skynyrd reference and a cool painting by Nicholas Roerich, see here:

Whitman in Syriac "Backward I see in my own days where I sweated through fog with linguists and contenders, I have no mockings or arguments, I witness and wait." ܠܒܣܬܪ ܚ̇ܙܐ ܐ̄ܢܐ ܒܝܘ̈ܡܝ ܕܝܠܝ ܠܐܝܟܐ ܕܕܥ̇ܬܬ ܒܓܘ ܥܪܦܠܐ ܒܒܥ̈ܠܝܗܘܢ ܕܠܫܢ̈ܐ ܘܕܪ̈ܐ ܠܝܬ ܠܝ ܒ̈ܙܚܐ ܘܐܦ ܠܐ ܦܝ̈ܣܐ ܐܢܐ ܣ̇ܗܕ ܐ̄ܢܐ ܘܢ̇ܛܪ ܐ̄ܢܐ (8-syll.)

“Harvard quietly ended its Undergraduate Minority Recruitment Program in May — shuttering a more than 50-year-old initiative to encourage minority high school students to apply … The UMRP was not involved in making admissions decisions.” www.thecrimson.com/article/2025...

Kazi Aniruddha - Dur Dweepobasini [India, Steel Guitar, Hawaiian, Lounge] (1968) https://redd.it/fltb0e https://youtu.be/kk7snDRJ6ag

#Catchoftheday #OpenAccess on #MENAdoc: "Praktisches Handbuch der osmanisch-türkischen Sprache" by Adolf Wahrmund [Giessen: Ricker, 1884] dx.doi.org/10.25673/97943 #ottoman #grammar #giessen

Old Georgian word of the day ცადება let, allow, grant Limonarion, ed. Abuladze, 4.22 მაცადეთ უკუე სამ დღე "okay, give me three days" მ-ა-ცად-ე-თ aor imv 2p O1 For more, including a Lynyrd Skynyrd reference and a cool painting by Nicholas Roerich, see here:

The Beauty and Value of Eastern Bilingual Manuscripts of the Bible by a (brilliant!) KU Leuven colleague Maxime Maleux alongthesilkroad.com/2025/09/12/t...

Here’s a rock ‘n roll band on a thousands-of-years-old stage at the foot of the Great Pyramid, surrounded by a cloud of bats…and I think to myself take me now, Lord, I wanna remember it just like this - Bob Weir #GratefulDead Gizah, Cairo, Egypt, 9/14/78 archive.org/details/gd78...