Chapter 1 My mother gave me the same name as a famous black man of the nineteen hundreds, Booker T. Washington. This story tells how the name has affected my life; as a child, as a teen, and as an adult. At the age of six, my teacher took me aside and told me that Booker T. was a famous black man who founded Tuskegee Institute in Alabama. I didn't think much about it at the time but as I grew older more and more people began to comment like my teacher had done. I asked my mother why she named me after this famous guy. I told her that I would rather have a name that did not draw so much attention, like my two brothers who were named Billy and Ellis. She told me that she thought I would like the name. We never talked about it again. I was named after my uncle Booker T. Washington, who was named after the famous Booker T. Washington who founded Tuskegee Institute in 1881 and is located in Tuskegee Alabama. My uncle was invited to, and attended a banquet with Booker T. Washington, in Frankfort, Kentucky when he was nine years old. According to my family, my family is not related to him. Let us not forget that he was one of the most famous black Americans of his time. My mom told me that she named me Booker, and that will always be your name. I never talked to her about my name again.

The concept of inspiration is part and parcel of the theological tradition in several religious confessions, but it has largely receded to the background, if not vanished altogether, in the discussions of biblical scholars. The question "Do we still need inspiration?" might well reflect the perplexity of many exegetes today. Systematic theologians, for their part, often further their own reflections on the subject independently of developments in the field of exegesis, with the risk of remaining purely theoretical. Biblical research in the last decades has been marked by new insights about the nature of the biblical texts, stemming from the study of their inner plurality (insofar as they combine and sometimes intertwine conflicting theologies), of their textual fluidity, and of their reception. Can these new insights be integrated into a theological reflection on the notion of inspiration? These questions are often explicitly raised about the Jewish and Christian Scriptures, but they also prove increasingly relevant for Qur’ānic studies. This volume addresses them through contributions from exegetes of the Bible and of the Qur’an and systematic theologians.

It has been some time since Catholic and liberal Protestant theologians stopped writing seriously on bibliology. Meanwhile, conservative evangelical theologians guard against the introduction of new ideas. In an effort to make headway through this gridlock, Carlos Bovell has commissioned a roundtable discussion on the prospect of whether the inspiration of Scripture might extend beyond authors and texts, and if so, what this might entail for the authority of Scripture. Taken together, the essays in this volume make an invaluable contribution to contemporary literature on the inspiration and authority of the Bible.

Dive into the profound teachings of Swami Vivekananda with 'Infinite Inspiration.' This enlightening collection features 101 timeless quotes that offer insights on self-realization, positive thinking, service, and unity. Through Vivekananda's words, readers are guided on a transformative journey of self-discovery, empowering them to overcome challenges, cultivate resilience, and embrace universal love. 'Infinite Inspiration' is a beacon of wisdom, inspiring readers to live with purpose, meaning, and fulfillment.

Explores how creative digital technologies and artificial intelligence are embedded in culture and society. In The Inspiration Machine, Eitan Y. Wilf explores the transformative potentials that digital technology opens up for creative practice through three ethnographic cases, two with jazz musicians and one with a group of poets. At times dissatisfied with the limitations of human creativity, these artists do not turn to computerized algorithms merely to execute their preconceived ideas. Rather, they approach them as creative partners, delegating to them different degrees of agentive control and artistic decision-making in the hopes of finding inspiration in their output and thereby expanding their own creative horizons. The algorithms these artists develop and use, however, remain rooted in and haunted by the specific social predicaments and human shortfalls that they were intended to overcome. Experiments in the digital thus hold an important lesson: although Wilf’s interlocutors returned from their adventures with computational creativity with modified, novel, and enriched capacities and predilections, they also gained a renewed appreciation for, and at times a desire to re-inhabit, non-digital creativity. In examining the potentials and pitfalls of seemingly autonomous digital technologies in the realm of art, Wilf shows that computational solutions to the real or imagined insufficiencies of human practice are best developed in relation to, rather than away from, the social and cultural contexts that gave rise to those insufficiencies, in the first place.