"I didn't laugh; you never laugh at undergraduates," says Crossan, a world-renowned scholar on the Bible who taught at De Paul University in Chicago for 26 years. Crossan also never laughs or judges anyone's faith or beliefs, no matter what they are, and he let the student make his a case for the resurrection of Elvis.
"But while he was talking, I was thinking, Oh my God, I'm back in the first century.

I'm not hanging out in the lobby, but I am listening to the show.

The director of the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore is a well known Byzantine scholar, specializing in icons. He's also an Elvis scholar who collects odd Elvis memorabilia & relics. He does a talk on the similarity between medieval saint cults and the Elvis cult; it's pretty interesting stuff. There isn't after all much difference between St. Gregory of Padua's finger in a crystal vial and a piece of Elvis' sweat stained scarf kept carefully in a cigar box. People have always worshiped mythical celebrities of one kind or another.

Ha! Awesome, Mygothlaundry, I've heard his talk. I'm one of those people who (along with my parents) hangs around art museums waiting for curators and their special guests to tour on by, and then gloms on and gets a freebie guided tour. The Walters is great for that (and everything else - it's been my fave since I was a boy and saw the old door with the hole for the cat in it).

The curators secretly love the attention.

I worked there for six years. I know all kinds of stories about that place - it was a great place to work.

Why did they get rid of the Arms and Armor dungeon room? As a kid, it was the draw for the Walters.

The idea was that they were going to integrate the armor with the rest of the period, so a lot of it should be on view on the medieval floor now. I left before they finished the entire reconstruction/reinstallation of the 1974 building.

I wrote a tour once originally for a group of 5th grade boys that I eventually turned into a selfguided family thing called Grisly Objects at the Walters - it was great. Featured the saint's finger in a reliquary, the mummy, the Roman sarcophagi, the armor and some of the creepier netsuke, like the one of the rat.

mygoth, that's awesome.

And the whole Elvis worship thing is interesting; makes me wish the Church of Elvis hadn't closed.

Speck, were you in PDX for the dying days of CoE? So sad.