In this episode we’re joined by Dr. Nicholas Elder, who is Associate Professor of New Testament at the University of Dubuque Theological Seminary and the author of the book that we discuss in this episode, Gospel Media: Reading, Writing, and Circulating Jesus Traditions (published by Eerdmans). Over the course of our conversation, Dr. Elder talks about some major myths that are perpetuated in scholarship regarding reading, writing, circulating, and publishing texts in antiquity and how...
Before we left for the UK my wife and I joined one of my graduate professors (and dear friend) for dinner with his family at his home. He gave me lots of needed advice about working on my PhD as he himself worked through his at the University of Aberdeen many years ago. One piece of advice he gave me was to make sure that I write something every day. Typically a PhD thesis is...
Systems are great. You should use them for, like, everything. I just realized this summer that there’s a pretty straightforward system for writing a research paper over five days. Identify a category. I like Athanasius’ On the Incarnation, but I had no idea what to write about it. So I picked it up and read the first twenty or so pages closely. Then I checked out Peter Leithart’s book, Athanasius, which breaks down his theology in three chapters. After...
For the past few years, I have been pretty intensely involved in a particular field of academics that generates a ton of monographs, books, and other book-like-things every year. One of the great ways us young academics can get our name listed along with all other rockstars of the Biblical studies field is to review one of these publications in a reputable journal. Other than writing really great blog entries with a devil-may-care attitude towards...
I once attended a funeral for a man (lets call him “Joe-Bob”) who was renowned in our little town in South Dakota for his regular place at the local bar. It was a unique affair with testimonials that praised Joe-Bob’s happy outlook on life, his ability to hold his alcohol, and his consistent appearance at the third seat down from the tap. Joe-Bob’s widow poignantly pointed out that, even though Joe-Bob was dying of cirrhosis...
I grew up, like most Christians, immersed by Christian culture. Left Behind books, Kirk Cameron movies, Tee-shirts with Christian knock-off slogans. Half of me lived in this realm, the other half lived in secular culture. Stephen King, Jim Carey movies, and non-knock off tee-shirts. All people, Christian or not, care about culture. We want our lives to have meaning and purpose within our culture. We’d like to make a difference for the good. People do...
The other day a friend of mine wrote a really great blog post where he surveyed several PhD students about how they managed their time while working on their PhD. You can read his post here: http://tinyurl.com/o28leab. I thought I would weigh in on the matter in this blog post. Typically one receives the following advice from one source or another: “When working on your PhD (especially in the British system where you typically have...
Every once and a while a strange but wonderful happenstance takes place in my office here at the University of Aberdeen. All three of us (myself and two officemates) spontaneously look up from our systematic theology books, economic charts of the Irish economy, and ancient Greek manuscripts to take part in a momentary reprieve from the intense study that will probably someday result in a PhD thesis. And, in a state of mutual recognition of...
The writing process for working on a PhD Thesis is pretty frustrating. I have spent the greater part of my first year here in Aberdeen just trying to nail down a system that works for me. I thought I would share this insane/frustrating/possibly helpful system in my blog this week. I originally wrote this post after my first meeting with my supervisor. I am pretty horrible with details. So much of the thesis writing process...
This story begins at the bottom of a trashcan–which, I admit, is not a very promising start. But it’s the story of how I come to be writing this post at all. It was a Sunday night in July 2011, 2 weeks after the miscarriage. My sisters had been visiting us for the past eleven days–providing a welcome source of comfort and distraction from the pain of our loss. But their trip was coming to...
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