Unseen Academicals Quotes

The female mind is certainly a devious one, my lord." Vetinari looked at his secretary in surprise. "Well, of course it is. It has to deal with the male one.

Juliet's version of cleanliness was next to godliness, which was to say it was erratic, past all understanding and was seldom seen.

Don't be smart. Smart is only a polished version of dumb. Try intelligence. It will surely see you through.

The thing about football - the important thing about football - is that it is not just about football.

Peace?' said Vetinari. 'Ah, yes, defined as period of time to allow for preparation for the next war.

And that's when I first learned about evil. It is built in to the very nature of the universe. Every world spins in pain. If there is any kind of supreme being, I told myself, it is up to all of us to become his moral superior.

If you try to to take my bananas from me, I will reclaim them from your cold dead hands.

I would like you to teach [the orcs] civilised behaviour," said Ladyship coldly. He appeared to consider this. "Yes of course, I think that would be quite possible," he said. "And who would you send to teach the humans?

Contrary to popular belief and hope, people don't usually come running when they hear a scream. That's not how humans work. Humans look at other humans and say, 'Did you hear a scream?' because the first scream might have been you screaming inside your head, or a horse backfiring.

The Librarian was not familiar with love, which had always struck him as a bit ethereal and soppy, but kindness, on the other hand, was practical. You knew where you were with kindness, especially if you were holding a pie it had just given you.

I see evil when I look in my shaving mirror. It is, philosophically, present everywhere in the universe in order, apparently, to highlight the existence of good. I think there is more to this theory, but I tend to burst out laughing at this point.

Apes had it worked out. No ape would philosophize, "The mountain is, and is not." They would think, "The banana is. I will eat the banana. There is no banana. I want another banana.

We play and are played and the best we can hope for is to do it with style.

You were safe on a troll. Anyone wanting to mug a troll would have to use a building on a stick.

I would like permission to fetch a note from my mother, sir' Ridcully sighed. 'Rincewind, you once informed me, to my everlasting puzzlement, that you never knew your mother because she ran away before you were born. Distinctly remember writing it down in my diary. Would you like another try?' 'Permission to go and find my mother?'

A lot hinges on the fact that, in most circumstances, people are not allowed to hit you with a mallet. They put up all kinds of visible and invisible signs that say, 'Do not do this' in the hope that it'll work, but if it doesn't, then they shrug, because there is, really, no real mallet at all.

The last thing she wanted was to see her friend getting ideas in her head. There was such a lot of room in there for them to bounce around and do damage.

Be one of the crowd? It went against everything a wizard stood for, and a wizard would not stand for anything if he could sit down for it, but even sitting down, you had to stand out.

There are all kinds of darkness, and all kinds of things can be found in them, imprisoned, banished, lost or hidden. Sometimes they escape. Sometimes they simply fall out. Sometimes they just can't take it any more.

It is considered in the Sto Plains that only scoundrels know the second verse of their national anthem, since anyone spending time memorizing that would be up to no good purpose.

I would not like it thought that I do not buy my own paperclips, sir. I enjoy owning my own paperclips. It means they are mine.

The rising sun managed to peek around the vast column of smoke that forever rose from Ankh-Morpork, City of Cities, illustrating almost up to the edge of space that smoke means progress or, at least, people setting fire to things.

Well, yes, but it's not about the football." "You're saying that football is not about football?" "It's the sharing," she said. "It's being part of the crowd. It's chanting together. It's all of it. the whole thing.

the Ankh-Morpork Trespassers' Society was originally the Explorers' Society until Lord Vetinari forcibly insisted that most of the places 'discovered' by the society's members already had people in them, who were already trying to sell snakes to the newcomers.

The politics of wizardry were either very simple, and resolved by someone ceasing to breathe, or as complex as one ball of yarn in a room with three bright-eyed little kittens.

But I did not return until half past four this morning and I distinctly remember stubbing my toe on the stairs. I am as drunk as a skunk, Drumknott, which of course means skunks are just as drunk as I. I must say the term is unfamiliar to me, and I had not thought hitherto of skunks in this context, but Mustrum Ridcully was kind enough to enlighten me.

... drink levels all mankind. It is the ultimate democrat

When you have dived off a cliff, your only hope is to press for the abolition of gravity.

They put it like that?' said Glenda, wide-eyed. 'Oh, you know the sort of thing if you read the papers a lot,' said Ponder. 'I seriously think they think that it is their job to calm people down by first of all explaining why they should be overexcited and very worried.

...one day when I was a young boy on holiday in Uberwald I was walking along the bank of a stream when I saw a mother otter with her cubs. A very endearing sight, I'm sure you'll agree, and even as I watched, the mother otter dived into the water and came up with a plump salmon, which she subdued and dragged onto a half submerged log. As she ate it, while of course it was still alive, the body split and I remember to this day the sweet pinkness of its roes as they spilled out, much to the delight of the baby otters, who scrambled over themselves to feed on the delicacy. One of nature's wonders, gentlemen. Mother and children dining upon mother and children. And that is when I first learned about evil. It is built into the very nature of the universe. Every world spins in pain. If there is any kind of supreme being, I told myself, it is up to all of us to become his moral superior.

She was, in fact, quite a pleasant looking girl, even if her bosom had clearly been intended for a girl two feet taller; but she was not Her. The Egregious Professor of Grammar and Usage would have corrected this to "she was not she," which would have caused the Professor of Logic to spit out his drink.

Three cheeses isn’t a choice, it’s a penance.

He waited patiently until the uproar had died away. It was amazing, he thought, how people would argue against figures on no better basis than ‘they must be wrong’.

...a man could be dogmatic, and that was all right, or he could be stupid, and no harm done, but stupid and dogmatic at the same time was too much, especially fluxed with body odor.

I believe he collects different types of stationery,' said Vetinari. 'I have sometimes speculated that he might change his life for the better should he meet a young lady willing to dress up as a manila envelope.

Sometimes people fools themselves into believing things that aren't true. Sometimes that can be quite dangerous for the person. They see the world in a wrong way. They won't let themselves see that what they believe is wrong. But often there is a part of the mind that does know, and the right words can let it out.

The Patrician took a sip of his beer. “I have told this to few people, gentlemen, and I suspect I never will again, but one day when I was a young boy on holiday in Uberwald I was walking along the bank of a stream when I saw a mother otter with her cubs. A very endearing sight, I’m sure you will agree, and even as I watched, the mother otter dived into the water and came up with a plump salmon, which she subdued and dragged on to a half-submerged log. As she ate it, while of course it was still alive, the body split and I remember to this day the sweet pinkness of its roes as they spilled out, much to the delight of the baby otters, who scrambled over themselves to feed on the delicacy. One of nature’s wonders, gentlemen: mother and children dining on mother and children. And that’s when I first learned about evil. It is built into the nature of the universe. Every world spins in pain. If there is any kind of supreme being, I told myself, it is up to all of us to become his moral superior.

Many bad things were done under the Evil Empire" she said. "The best we can do now is undo them. Will you assist in this endeavor?" "In every way that I can" said Nutt. "I would like you to teach them civilized behavior," said Ladyship coldly. He appeared to consider this. "Yes, of course, I think, that would be quite possible," he said. "And who would you send to teach the humans?" There was a brief outburst of laughter from Vetinari, who immediately cupped his hand over his mouth. "Oh I do beg your pardon," he said.

Plate after plate sparkled under Glenda’s hands. Nothing cleans stubborn stains like suppressed anger.

The Egregious Professor of Grammar and Usage would have corrected this to ‘she was not she’, which would have caused the Professor of Logic to spit out his drink.

She reached down and picked a crab out of a bucket. As it came up it turned out that three more were hanging on to it. "A crab necklace?" giggled Juliet. "Oh, that's crabs for you," said Verity, disentangling the ones who had hitched a ride. "thick as planks, the lot of them. That's why you can keep them in a bucket wihtout a lid. Any that tries to get out gets pulled back. yes, as thick as planks.

Truth is female, since truth is beauty rather than handsomeness; this, Ridcully reflected as the council grumbled in, would certainly explain the saying that a lie could run around the world before Truth has got its, correction, her boots on, since she would have to choose which pair - the idea that any woman in a position to choose would have just one pair of boots being beyond rational belief. Indeed, as a goddess she would have lots of shoes, and thus many choices: comfy shoes for home truths, hobnail boots for unpleasant truths, simple clogs for universal truths and possibly some kind of slipper for self-evident truth. More important right now was what kind of truth he was going to have to impart to his colleagues, and he decided not on the whole truth, but instead on nothing but the truth, which dispensed with the need for honesty.

The truth of the matter was that Juliet would look good in a sack. Somehow everything she wore fitted perfectly. Glenda, on the other hand, never found anything good in her size and indeed seldom anything in her size. In theory, something should fit, but all she ever found was facts, which are so unbecoming.

My ladsh," said Swithin, "are the besht there ish. It'sh not their fault they're up againsht better people.

But, it was a funny thing: every day something happened that was important enough to be on the front page of the newspaper. She’d never bought it and seen a little sign that said ‘Not much happened yesterday, sorry about that’.

If there is any kind of supreme being, I told myself, it is up to all of us to become his moral superior.

And Unseen University took tradition very seriously, at least when it remembered to.

Glenda enjoyed her job. She didn’t have a career; they were for people who could not hold down jobs.

Why is there a certain cast of the military mind which leads sensible people to do again, with gusto, what didn't work before?

Museums don't like things to be thrown away, in case they turn out to be very important later on.

All right, so you’re an orc,’ said Trev. ‘So they used to eat people. Have you eaten anyone lately?’ ‘No, Mister Trev.’ ‘Well, there you are, then.

In their quest to hit cloud Nine, our young men and women in their prime are gradually finding themselves on ground Zero, emotionally battered, academically bankrupt and medically paralyzed.

There is a phrase "neither flesh nor fowl nor good red herring." This thing was all of them, plus some other bits of beasts unknown to science or nightmare or even kebab. There was certainly some red, and a lot of flapping, and Nutt was sure he caught a glimpse of an enormous sandal...

The main hall of the palace was an intimidating place when empty, because it had been designed for exactly that purpose.

She tends to get distracted. Her mind wanders and amuses itself elsewhere.

Juliet’s version of cleanliness was next to godliness, which was to say it was erratic, past all understanding and was seldom seen.

Don’t be smart. Smart is only a polished version of dumb. Try intelligence. It will surely see you through.

Maybe there had been true evil there, but apparently the evil was, oddly enough, always on the other side.

It has been said that crowds are stupid, but mostly they are simply confused, since as an eyewitness the average person is as reliable as a meringue lifejacket.

When they hunt, every dog knows the position of every other dog. I wanted them to understand the duality of team and player. The strength of the player is the team and the strength of the team is the player.

You know it’s going to be Mary the Maid, or someone like her, and there’s going to be two men and she will end up with the nice one, and there has to be misunderstandings, and they never do anything more than kiss and it’s absolutely guaranteed that, for example, an exciting civil war or an invasion by trolls or even a scene with any cooking in it is not going to happen. The best you can expect is a thunderstorm.

There are all kinds of darkness, and all kinds of things can be found in them, imprisoned, banished, lost or hidden. Sometimes they escape. Sometimes they simply fall out. Sometimes they just can't take it anymore.

even the post of Tyrant has been somewhat redefined by the incumbent, Lord Vetinari, as the only form of democracy that works. Everyone is entitled to vote, unless disqualified by reason of age or not being Lord Vetinari.

The Librarian was not very familiar with love, which had always struck him as a bit ethereal and soppy, but kindness, on the other hand, was practical. You knew where you were with kindness, especially if you were holding a pie it had just given you.

Nutt was technically an expert on love poetry throughout the ages and had discussed it at length with Miss Healstether, the castle librarian. He had also tried to discuss it with Ladyship, but she had laughed and said it was frivolity, although quite helpful as a tutorial on the use of vocabulary, scansion, rhythm and affect as a means to an end, to wit getting a young lady to take all her clothes off. At that particular point, Nutt had not really understood what she meant. It sounded like some sort of conjuring trick.

And power is a game of smoke and mirrors,’ said her ladyship, reaching for the wine. ‘Oddly enough, Commander Vimes reminds me of that nearly every day. No civil police force could hold out against an irate and resolute population. The trick is not to let them realize that. Yes?

Can I tell you something very interesting about ships?" It wasn't exactly what Glenda had expected, but somehow it was one hundred percent Nutt. "Please tell me the interesting thing about ships," she said. "The interesting thing about ships is that the captains of ships have to be very careful when two ships are close together at sea, particularly in calm conditions. They tend to collide. "To put it simply, each ship shields the other ship from lateral waves on one side, so by small increments outside forces bring them closer without their realising it." "Oh! It's a metaphor?" said Glenda, relieved. "You think we're being pushed together . . . if we don't do anything we'll just get closer and closer?" "Yes," said Nutt.

Ah, yes. Perhaps I have confused you. There was a time when my mind was full of darkness. Then Brother Oats helped me to the light, and I was born.’ ‘Oh, religion stuff.’ ‘But here I am. You asked why I am strong? When I lived in the dark of the forge, I used to lift weights. The tongs at first, and then the little hammer and then the biggest hammer, and then one day I could lift the anvil. That was a good day. It was a little freedom.’ ‘Why was it so important to lift the anvil?’ ‘I was chained to the anvil.

By his own admission, he would rather run ten miles, leap a five-bar gate and climb a big hill than engage in any athletic activity.

ow do I know I can trust you?’ said the urchin. ‘I don’t know,’ said Ridcully. ‘The subtle workings of the brain are a mystery to me, too. But I’m glad that is your belief.

Yeah, I suppose it was a history. I wanted it to be more of a geography, but she kept slappin’ my hand.’ Trev

Bring 'em in stupid, send them away clever, that's the UU way!

As a wizard, I must tell you that words have power.’ ‘As a politician, I must tell you I already know.

Juliet didn’t exactly wash dishes, she gave them a light baptism.

The female mind is certainly a devious one, my lord.’ Vetinari looked at his secretary in surprise. ‘Well, of course it is. It has to deal with the male one.

He would sit all night under the lamp, book of the moment in front of him, dictionary and thesaurus on either side, wringing the meaning out of every word, punching ceaselessly at his own ignorance. When

Such sudden devotion to a printed page worried Glenda. The last thing she wanted was to see her friend getting ideas in her head. There was such a lot of room in there for them to bounce around and do damage

And that’s when I first learned about evil. It is built in to the very nature of the universe. Every world spins in pain. If there is any kind of supreme being, I told myself, it is up to all of us to become his moral superior.

Would you accept “slackers by hand and brain”?’ said Ridcully, always happy to see how far he could go. ‘Slackers by hand and brain by statute,’ said the Senior Wrangler primly. Ridcully gave up. He could do this all day, but life couldn’t be all fun.

A lot hinges on the fact that, in most circumstances, people are not allowed to hit you with a mallet. They put up all kinds of visible and invisible signs that say ‘Do not do this’ in the hope that it’ll work, but if it doesn’t, then they shrug, because there is, really, no real mallet at all. Look

Among us, on the other hand, 'the righteous man lives by faith.' Now, if you take away positive affirmation, you take away faith, for without positive affirmation nothing is believed. And there are truths about things unseen, and unless they are believed, we cannot attain to the happy life, which is nothing less than life eternal. It is a question whether we ought to argue with those who profess themselves ignorant not only about the eternity yet to come but also about their present existence, for they [the Academics] even argue that they do not know what they cannot help knowing. For no one can 'not know' that he himself is alive. If he is not alive, he cannot 'not know' about it or anything else at all, because either to know or to 'not know' implies a living subject. But, in such a case, by not positively affirming that they are alive, the skeptics ward off the appearance of error in themselves, yet they do not make errors simply by showing themselves alive; one cannot err who is not alive. That we live is therefore not only true, but it is altogether certain as well. And there are many things that are thus true and certain concerning which, if we withhold positive assent, this ought not to be regarded as a higher wisdom but actually a sort of dementia.

Once they arrive, affirmative action kids are generally left to sink or swim academically. Brown (University) offers plenty of counseling and tutoring to struggling students, but, as any academic Dean will tell you, it's up to the students to seek it out, something that a drowning minority student will seek to avoid at all costs, fearing it will trumpet a second-class status.

You had to find the truth for yourself. That is how we all find the truth.' ' And if the truth is terrible?' 'I think you know the answer to that one, Nutt,' said the voice of Ladyship. 'The answer is that, terrible or not, it is still the truth,' said Nutt. 'And then?' said her voice, like a teacher encouraging a promising pupil. 'And then the truth can be changed,' said Nutt.

Wild animals enjoying one another and taking pleasure in their world is so immediate and so real, yet this reality is utterly absent from textbooks and academic papers about animals and ecology. There is a truth revealed here, absurd in its simplicity. This insight is not that science is wrong or bad. On the contrary: science, done well, deepens our intimacy with the world. But there is a danger in an exclusively scientific way of thinking. The forest is turned into a diagram; animals become mere mechanisms; nature's workings become clever graphs. Today's conviviality of squirrels seems a refutation of such narrowness. Nature is not a machine. These animals feel. They are alive; they are our cousins, with the shared experience kinship implies. And they appear to enjoy the sun, a phenomenon that occurs nowhere in the curriculum of modern biology. Sadly, modern science is too often unable or unwilling to visualize or feel what others experience. Certainly science's "objective" gambit can be helpful in understanding parts of nature and in freeing us from some cultural preconceptions. Our modern scientific taste for dispassion when analyzing animal behaviour formed in reaction to the Victorian naturalists and their predecessors who saw all nature as an allegory confirming their cultural values. But a gambit is just an opening move, not a coherent vision of the whole game. Science's objectivity sheds some assumptions but takes on others that, dressed up in academic rigor, can produce hubris and callousness about the world. The danger comes when we confuse the limited scope of our scientific methods with the true scope of the world. It may be useful or expedient to describe nature as a flow diagram or an animal as a machine, but such utility should not be confused with a confirmation that our limited assumptions reflect the shape of the world. Not coincidentally, the hubris of narrowly applied science serves the needs of the industrial economy. Machines are bought, sold, and discarded; joyful cousins are not. Two days ago, on Christmas Eve, the U.S. Forest Service opened to commercial logging three hundred thousand acres of old growth in the Tongass National Forest, more than a billion square-meter mandalas. Arrows moved on a flowchart, graphs of quantified timber shifted. Modern forest science integrated seamlessly with global commodity markets—language and values needed no translation. Scientific models and metaphors of machines are helpful but limited. They cannot tell us all that we need to know. What lies beyond the theories we impose on nature? This year I have tried to put down scientific tools and to listen: to come to nature without a hypothesis, without a scheme for data extraction, without a lesson plan to convey answers to students, without machines or probes. I have glimpsed how rich science is but simultaneously how limited in scope and in spirit. It is unfortunate that the practice of listening generally has no place in the formal training of scientists. In this absence science needlessly fails. We are poorer for this, and possibly more hurtful. What Christmas Eve gifts might a listening culture give its forests? What was the insight that brushed past me as the squirrels basked? It was not to turn away from science. My experience of animals is richer for knowing their stories, and science is a powerful way to deepen this understanding. Rather, I realized that all stories are partly wrapped in fiction—the fiction of simplifying assumptions, of cultural myopia and of storytellers' pride. I learned to revel in the stories but not to mistake them for the bright, ineffable nature of the world.

We often think the purpose of criticism is to nail things down. During my years as an art critic, I used to joke that museums love artists the way that taxidermists love deer, and something of that desire to secure, to stabilize, to render certain and definite the open-ended, nebulous, and adventurous work of artists is present in many who work in that confinement sometimes called the art world. A similar kind of aggression against the slipperiness of the work and the ambiguities of the artist's intent and meaning often exists in literary criticism and academic scholarship, a desire to make certain what is uncertain, to know what is unknowable, to turn the flight across the sky into the roast upon the plate, to classify and contain. What escapes categorization can escape detection altogether. There is a kind of counter-criticism that seeks to expand the work of art, by connecting it, opening up its meanings, inviting in the possibilities. A great work of criticism can liberate a work of art, to be seen fully, to remain alive, to engage in a conversation that will not ever end but will instead keep feeing the imagination. Not against interpretation, but against confinement, against the killing of the spirit. Such criticism is itself great art. This is a kind of criticism that does not pit the critic against the text, does not seek authority. It seeks instead to travel with the work and its ideas, to invite it to blossom and invite others into a conversation that might have previously seemed impenetrable, to draw out relationships that might have been unseen and open doors that might have been locked. This is a kind of criticism that respects the essential mystery of art, which is in part its beauty and its pleasure, both of which are irreducible and subjective. The worst criticism seeks to have the last word and leave the rest of us in silence; the best opens up an exchange that need never end.

Change and decay!” Ridcully declared to the night air. “I am surrounded by traitors! They thwart me at every turn.

The Librarian was not very familiar with love, which had always struck him as a bit ethereal and soppy, but kindness, on the other hand, was practical.

Glenda, on the other hand, never found anything good in her size and indeed seldom found anything in her size. In theory, something should fit, but all she ever found was facts, which are so unbecoming.

He had been just another servant in the maze of the university, but now he was a friend of Nutt, and Nutt was important. He was also wrong. He had no place in the world, but he was in it, and the world was becoming aware of him soon enough. The Librarian knew all about this sort of thing. There had been no space in the fabric of reality marked ‘simian librarian’ until he’d been dropped into one, and the ripples had made his life a very strange one.

May I also, sir, request a very small budget?’ ‘Why?’ ‘With all due respect to the exigencies of university finances,’ said Nutt, ‘I believe it is very necessary.

He let you down, Mister Trev. He wasn’t the small boy’s god. It turned out that he was only a man. But he was not only a man. Everyone who has ever watched a game in this city has heard of Dave Likely. If he was a fool, then any man who has ever climbed a mountain or swum a torrent is a fool. If he was a fool then so was the man who first tried to tame fire. If he was a fool then so was the man who tried the first oyster, he was a fool, too–although I’m bound to remark that, given the division of labour in early hunter-gatherer cultures, he was probably a woman as well. Perhaps only a fool gets out of bed. But, after death, some fools shine like stars, and your father is such a one. After death, people forget the foolishness, but they do remember the shine.

was walking along the bank of a stream when I saw a mother otter with her cubs. A very endearing sight, I’m sure you will agree, and even as I watched, the mother otter dived into the water and came up with a plump salmon, which she subdued and dragged on to a half-submerged log. As she ate it, while of course it was still alive, the body split and I remember to this day the sweet pinkness of its roes as they spilled out, much to the delight of the baby otters who scrambled over themselves to feed on the delicacy. One of nature’s wonders, gentlemen: mother and children dining upon mother and children. And that’s when I first learned about evil. It is built in to the very nature of the universe. Every world spins in pain. If there is any kind of supreme being, I told myself, it is up to all of us to become his moral superior.

Traditionally, in the lexicon of pathos, such a bear should have only one eye, but as the result of a childhood error in Glenda’s sewing, he has three, and is more enlightened than the average bear.

Life as an unseen part of Unseen University was a matter of alliances, feuds, obligations and friendships, all stirred and twisted and woven together.

Like many large people, she could move as quietly as the balloon she resembled.

Beauty can be considered to be neutral, sir. It is not the same as nice or good.

Do you know everything, Mister Nutt?’ he said with the sarcasm of a born pedagogue

I wish I could say that I was just smart enough to figure things out on my own. But in reality, even though I believe I was providentially prepared for the academic task I faced, there were times in the process when the best description I can give is that I was led to answers.

WHEN WE BEGAN OUR JOURNEY, I SHARED WITH YOU MY OWN EXPERIENCE of venturing into the mind of ancient Israelites and the Jews and Christians of the first century and how that made it impossible to look at the Bible as I had before. It ruined me in an agreeable way. But I can only say that with hindsight. At the time of that experience, I had already taught on the college level and was in the midst of one of the nation’s most respected Hebrew Bible programs—and yet I hadn’t been thinking clearly about Scripture. I hadn’t seen much of what I’ve written in this book. I’d been blinded by tradition and my own predilection to keep certain things on the periphery when it came to the Bible. It was the worst possible time in my life to have everything put into upheaval, to have to rethink and reevaluate what I believed. It required that I be humbled, something that doesn’t come easily to an academic. The realization that I needed to read the Bible like a premodern person who embraced the supernatural, unseen world has illumined its content more than anything else in my academic life. One question I’ve been asked over the years when sharing insights that are now part of this book was one that I asked myself: Why haven’t I heard these things before? It astonished me that I could sit under years of biblical preaching and teaching and never have anyone alert me to the important and exciting truths we’ve tracked here. I’ve learned that the answer to that question is complex. Rather than dwell on it, God provoked me to do something about it. Most people aren’t going to learn Greek and Hebrew (and other dead languages) as part of studying Scripture. Most aren’t going to pursue a PhD in biblical studies, where they’ll encounter the high-level scholarship that will force them to think about what the biblical text really says and why it says it in its own ancient context, far removed from any modern tradition. But everyone ought to reap some benefit from those disciplines. And so it has become my ambition to parse that data and synthesize it so that more people can experience the thrill of rediscovering the supernatural worldview of the Bible—of reading the Bible again for the first time.

hope. Ah, soup.