I’m nearly finished reading the page proofs for the second edition of After the New Testament.  Gods willing, I finish tomorrow – a good thing, because I’m heading out of town (well, I’m already out of town; so I’m heading out of town out of town) to do some hiking.  I’ll be able to keep the blog up (let’s hear it for wi-fi!).  But proof reading is outta the question!   Anyway, yesterday I gave the first half of the Introduction to one of the new sections in the second edition of the book (that I call ANT), on Women in Early Christianity.   You may want to reread that bit from yesterday if it’s not fresh in your mind.  Here’s the final part of the Introduction.  (Please note: I give a very small bibliography at the end.  The reason it is so small: it is for college students in a beginning course.  Many of you will probably want to suggest other readings.  I too would like to suggest more – lots more!  But my idea is [...]

Among other things, I am spending a chunk of each day just now reading the page proofs for the second edition of my anthology After the New Testament.   “Page proofs” are the type-set pages as they are ready to appear in the printed book.   This is the last chance an author has to catch mistakes, typos, and so on.  The new edition of this book is fairly long– over 550 pages – and reading proofs is one of the very least interesting parts of the job.  It’s a serious pain in the neck.   The press also (typically – depending on the press) employs a proof-reader; but no one can catch everything, and there are certainly typographical errors that will not be caught.   In the first edition of this particular book, in the opening lines of the Gospel of Peter, where “King Herod,” Jesus arch-enemy, is introduced, my text was printed as “Kind Herod.”   Ai yai yai…. In any event, as I mentioned back in January, and then again in May, there are sixteen chapters in [...]