It was an unusually cold Winter day in Durham, North Carolina, USA—a great morning for an Americano at the small downtown coffee shop. Lauschen buzzed over to a table where two men sat, two of only three patrons present in the locally owned business. Lauschen, ever atop biblical studies’ prominent personalities, recognized Dr. Berühmtheit as an… Continue Reading
Research | Writing | Digital Humanities | Biblical Studies
Five Reasons I Subscribe to ___________ and you should, too.
For a few reasons I have avoided including a blogroll in my sidebar. While I’m not creating one just yet, I thought I’d take a handful of posts (in no particular order) to mention some sites I subscribe to and why–five reasons why, to be exact. The first: Rod Decker’s NT Resources Blog Rod Decker… Continue Reading
Why Swap Horses Midstream? Leaving one PhD program for another.
It’s seldom a good idea to swap horses midstream, right? Right. And it is, in my opinion, seldom a good idea to swap PhD programs midstream. But I did, and I want to reflect a bit on my decision in hope that this may help someone else facing a similar dilemma. In the Beginning I… Continue Reading
Lauschen the Fly: A Biblical Studies Spy (001)
Meet Lauschen the Fly,* an expert eavesdropper and world-traveling bug with a keen interest in biblical studies. In weeks to come, we’re going to get a glimpse of some of the crazy things that Lauschen has witnessed in biblical studies—the funny conversations scholars share, the peculiar behavior of academicians, and, perhaps those rare visits Lauschen… Continue Reading
LaTeX and Why I Won't Use It For My Thesis
In my previous post I discussed some of the software choices I’ve made for working on a PhD thesis. This evening I spent a bit of time researching the pros and cons of using various document markup languages for taking a raw text and styling it (or typesetting). The main one that intrigued me is… Continue Reading
Software for Writing a PhD Thesis
There are four categories of software for thesis writing: (1) project organizing; (2) word-processing; (3) bibliographic organization; and (4) specialty software. Here are some of the best programs, along with those I find essential to my PhD thesis and scholarly writing workflow. [UPDATED 2 February 2019 – And I have successfully completed the PhD! Hooray!] Continue Reading
UK Bound
[excerpts from our letter] Dear friends and family: At the very end of August, my wife, Mel, and son, Zachary, and I will be moving to Edinburgh, UK (Scotland) so that I can complete a PhD in New Testament. Many of you may know that I was in a PhD program at Midwestern in Kansas… Continue Reading
"I Can Do All Things" and Bad Christian T-Shirts
I was recently reading Rodney Decker‘s “Evaluation” of the 2011 NIV in Themelios (available here). I recommend the article as a careful summary of the issues, strengths and weaknesses of the latest edition of the NIV. In this post, I only wish to highlight a small section on “Changes Due to the Need for Greater Clarity”:… Continue Reading
Hurtado on a Mistaken Premise in Jesus Research
Larry Hurtado has an intriguing post on the “Historical Jesus Debate.” What I find particularly interesting is his suggestion that there is in historical Jesus studies an oft-unidentified premise: If a serious difference can be shown between what Jesus himself taught (especially what he taught about himself) and what early Christians believed (especially what they… Continue Reading
W. C. van Unnik's Advice for Young Scholars
In short, don’t be a parrot! In an oft-referenced essay, “Luke-Acts, A Storm Center in Contemporary Scholarship,” W. C. van Unnik recalls advice he gave to a young scholar-to-be who inquired what issues he might study which would be in vogue: So I said to my young friend that the proper thing for him to… Continue Reading