Dr Dirk Obbink, 62, an associate professor at Oxford University's classics faculty, has been accused of selling without permission fragments belonging to the vast Oxyrhynchus collection.

Dr Obbink has denied any wrongdoing but is now under investigation by Oxford University, which continues to employ him while inquiries are ongoing. Read more

They say rapid advances made in biological research in recent decades are raising questions about what they mean for our wider understanding of life itself and how to define the debate as it evolves.

Whether "new biology" - which stems from developing technologies such as genetic engineering and human enhancement - is leading the life sciences away from a strict Darwinian approach towards a holistic view more compatible with Christian thinking remained open at the end of the conference.

Organisers say the conference goal was not to reach an agreement but for participants to air their diverse views.

Nonetheless, participants did agree on one thing: the growing understanding of genetics — including how genes are turned on or off and how the now mapped genome can be edited to produce desired results — has meant important strides forward in the way science views how genes influence development.

"We realise how much we were missing in the original image without even realising we were missing it," said Donovan Schaefer, an Oxford lecturer in science and religion and co-organiser of the conference.

This naturally has an effect, he said, on "the grander questions about biology, religion, the humanities and evolutionary theory generally".

Source

• RNS
• The Tablet
• Crux
• Image: Religion News Service

This ground-breaking centre, based in Keble College's Advanced Studies Centre, is to be composed of computer and medical scientists as well as historians, classicists and theologians.

Such an interdisciplinary approach builds upon work that has been undertaken by the university's archaeological school since the 1980s.

Past achievements within the university have included the dating of the shroud of Turin, which involved study in three laboratories and the radiocarbon accelerator unit.

This new unit is the first time that such a wide-ranging field of experts has been brought together in this way.

The use of relics in Christian worship is ancient but for some it represents the worst excesses of superstition.

Here are some of the more unusual, quirky and controversial relics.

The head of St Catherine of Siena - San Domenico Basilica Siena, Italy

St Catherine of Siena lived a pious life after experiencing a vision of Jesus at the age of seven.

Her parents had arranged her marriage to a local man. In order to resist this attempt and preserve her virginity, she cut off her hair and scalded her head with hot water.

She died in Rome in 1380 and the people of Siena asked for her body to be returned home but were refused. Some of her devotees secretly dug up her body and severed her head, placing it in a bag.

There is a legend that when the roman guard apprehended those who had taken the head, all that was found in the bag were rose petals.

When they finally arrived in Siena the rose petals had miraculously turned back into St Catherine's head.

Today St Catherine's head can be seen alongside her thumb and attracts large number of pilgrims each year. Her body remains in Rome and her foot is claimed to be in a reliquary in Venice. Continue reading

Sources

• Catholic Herald, from an article by Fr Matthew Pittam, a priest of the Archdiocese of Birmingham.
• Image: Catholic Saints Blogspot

The two libraries in 2012 announced a four-year project to digitize some of the most important works in their collections of Hebrew manuscripts, Greek manuscripts and early printed books.

The 2 million pound ($3.3 million) project is being funded by the Polonsky Foundation, which aims to democratize access to information.

"We want everyone who can to see these manuscripts, these great works of humanity," Monsignor Cesare Pasini, the prefect of the Vatican Library, told The Associated Press. "And we want to conserve them."

Among the first works up on the site Tuesday, at http:/bav.bodleian.ox.ac.uk are the two-volume Gutenberg Bibles from each of the libraries, the first-ever books set on type-face in the mid-1400s by printer Johannes Gutenberg in Germany, heralding the age of the printed book in the West.

The online collection also includes an illustrated 11th century Greek bible and a beautiful 15th-century German bible, hand-colored and illustrated by woodcuts.

Sources

AP/CBC News
ABC News
BBC
Image: Bodleian Libraries/University of Oxford/CBC News

Mark Vernon considers that "The lectures present a lively history of silence in the church, and left me with a clear sense that this is a history that affects us all today".

According to Vernon, "Noisy Christianity is alive and kicking. For individuals who feel the allure of silence, it is off-putting and irrelevant. They might never know that there are profound, useful meditative traditions in Christianity too".

• Read Mark Vernon's article
• Image: Fields of Silence

Mark Vernon is a writer and journalist. His latest book is called How To Be An Agnostic.

Oxford University made the announcement Thursday, saying that the digitization will focus on three subject areas: Greek manuscripts, 15th century printed books, as well as Hebrew manuscripts and early printed books drawn from its Bodleian Libraries and the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana. Continue reading