Some scholars say early versions of the Bible featured Asherah, a powerful fertility goddess who may have been God's wife. Research by Francesca Stavrakopoulou, a senior lecturer in the department of Theology and Religion at the University of Exeter, unearthed clues to her identity, but good luck finding mention of her in the Bible. If Stavrakopoulou is right, heavy-handed male editors of the text all but removed her from the sacred book.

What remains of God's purported other half are clues in ancient texts, amulets and figurines unearthed primarily in an ancient Canaanite coastal city, now in modern-day Syria. Inscriptions on pottery found in the Sinai desert also show Yahweh and Asherah were worshipped as a pair, and a passage in the Book of Kings mentions the goddess as being housed in the temple of Yahweh.

J. Edward Wright, president of The Arizona Center for Judaic Studies and The Albright Institute for Archaeological Research, backs Stavrakopoulou's findings, saying several Hebrew inscriptions mention “Yahweh and his Asherah." He adds Asherah was not entirely edited out of the Bible by its male editors.

"Traces of her remain, and based on those traces... we can reconstruct her role in the religions of the Southern Levant," he told Discovery News.

via TIME.

Some American Hindus have recently argued that Hindus should “Take Back Yoga”. The Hindu American Foundation insists “that the philosophy of yoga was first described in Hinduism’s seminal texts and remains at the core of Hindu teaching”, that yoga is the legacy of a timeless, spiritual “Indian wisdom”. Other Americans agree that the Hindus should take back yoga – from the many Christians who embrace it: R. Albert Mohler Jr, president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, advises Christians to abandon yoga if they value their (Christian) souls. This fight evokes for me the Monty Python skit in which Greek and German philosophers compete in a football game (which ends with Marx claiming that the Greek goalscorer was off-side). Declaring the Southern Baptists (or at least the Revd R. Albert Mohler) off-side, we may still ask, why do so many American Hindus care so much whether yoga is Hindu? And is it? One reason for the Hindu concern is suggested by the capitalist overtones of phrases used by Dr Aseem Shukla, a urologist who is co-founder of the Hindu American Foundation: Hinduism has “lost control of the brand” of yoga and has been the victim of “overt intellectual property theft” by people who have “offered up a religion’s spiritual wealth at the altar of crass commercialism”. In other words, yoga is a sacred cash cow: about 15 million people in America practise (and generally pay for) something that they call yoga, making it a multi-billion-dollar industry.

But a deeper casus belli lies in the two-fold historical claim made by activists of Hindu American identity politics: that yoga (a) was first described in the ancient Vedic texts of Hinduism and (b) has always been the core of Hinduism. Hindu Americans’ deep investment (to continue the financial metaphor) in these claims about history has its own history. For, given the human obsession with roots, those claims generally take the form of arguments about the origins of yoga, a quest for purity of lineage, for undefiled racial descent, here as always a mad quest, since the history of yoga is, like most histories, a palimpsest.

via TLS.

Here’s how Vigneron reworks the classic peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich in Quantum Kitchen: For the grape “jelly,” he adds 10 grams of glucose and 3 grams of xanthan gum to 600 grams of grape juice, then stores the mixture in a refrigerator for 24 hours. He spoons the resulting gel into spheres that are dipped in a sodium alginate bath for 10 seconds, followed by a cold water submersion.

To complement the grape spheres, Vigneron adds 2 ounces of tapioca maltodextrin to a scoop of peanut butter, producing a powdery consistency.

via Wired.com.

NOBODY calls me anymore — and that’s just fine. With the exception of immediate family members, who mostly phone to discuss medical symptoms and arrange child care, and the Roundabout Theater fund-raising team, which takes a diabolical delight in phoning me every few weeks at precisely the moment I am tucking in my children, people just don’t call. It’s at the point where when the phone does ring — and it’s not my mom, dad, husband or baby sitter — my first thought is: “What’s happened? What’s wrong?” My second thought is: “Isn’t it weird to just call like that? Out of the blue? With no e-mailed warning?”

I don’t think it’s just me. Sure, teenagers gave up the phone call eons ago. But I’m a long way away from my teenage years, back when the key rite of passage was getting a phone in your bedroom or (cue Molly Ringwald gasp) a line of your own.

In the last five years, full-fledged adults have seemingly given up the telephone — land line, mobile, voice mail and all. According to Nielsen Media, even on cellphones, voice spending has been trending downward, with text spending expected to surpass it within three years.

“I literally never use the phone,” Jonathan Adler, the interior designer, told me. (Alas, by phone, but it had to be.) “Sometimes I call my mother on the way to work because she’ll be happy to chitty chat. But I just can’t think of anyone else who’d want to talk to me.” Then again, he doesn’t want to be called, either. “I’ve learned not to press ‘ignore’ on my cellphone because then people know that you’re there.”

“I remember when I was growing up, the rule was, ‘Don’t call anyone after 10 p.m.,’ ” Mr. Adler said. “Now the rule is, ‘Don’t call anyone. Ever.’ ”

Phone calls are rude. Intrusive. Awkward. “Thank you for noticing something that millions of people have failed to notice since the invention of the telephone until just now,” Judith Martin, a k a Miss Manners, said by way of opening our phone conversation. “I’ve been hammering away at this for decades. The telephone has a very rude propensity to interrupt people.”

via NYTimes.com.

at the north market.

sending shopping back to Australia involves forms.