From Syria to Pike Place

Here's an interesting article in the Times about the survival (barely) of Aramaic in several Syrian villages. The article notes how The Passion of the Christ stirred some interest in Malula's (a Syrian village) Aramaic heritage. Like the citizens of the village and the prof. at UCLA mentioned in the story, I also had a hard time following the Aramaic dialogue in the movie, because of the "different dialects of Aramaic, and the actors’ pronunciation made it hard to understand anything." But only for those reasons. Heh.

Meanwhile, Brian at Climb Jacob's Ladder has an interesting post up about "Libertarian strains in US Christianity and its boundaries." He examines the intersection of Christianity with government and manages to touch on the philosophical roots of the US constitution.

Tim Ricchuiti has provided some final thoughts (along with session-by-session summaries) of the 2008 Grear-Heard Forum at New Orleans Baptist Seminary. This would have been an awesome event to attend.

Oh, and for the record, I hate Starbucks' Pike Place Roast! It's weak. Sorry, Jason.