I often get asked how I go about doing my research for a book I’m writing, especially the scholarly ones. One question people ask on occasion: do I take notes on what I read? If so, how? I dealt with the question on this date six years ago, in answer to a specific question. I still follow the same system today. Here is the question and my response!
QUESTION:
You’ve told us about reading book after book after book before you even ...
Continue Reading →I’ve been concerned for the past months (among many other things, of course) about PhD’s trying to get teaching positions in colleges and universities. Even when there is not an economy-busting pandemic, it’s hard. Very hard. Many years ago when I was on the market, I had an awful time trying to find a job .
Oddly enough, I see now, I posted on this very topic, on this very date during the first year of the blog (2012). Here’s what ...
Continue Reading →I was breezing through ancient blog posts this morning and came across this one from exactly eight years ago. It involves a question I get a lot (got it last week!), from people interested in doing graduate work in the field of New Testament or early Christianity. What is it like and what does it take? Here is what I said back then, which is pretty much what I would still say today!
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I sometimes get asked what it ...
Continue Reading →As a rule I don’t watch a lot of films, but during the crisis Sarah and I have reinstated our weekly “movie night,” and on Friday we saw Ethan Hawke’s First Reformed. Have you seen it? I was very reluctant to do so for personal reasons. I thought it would hit to close to home. Oh boy was I right.
I’ve always loved Ethan Hawke, from Dead Poet’s Society onward. But this one was a bit hard. The movie itself is ...
Continue Reading →Here’s a post I made six years ago, when just starting to think about what I would do in my book How Jesus Became God, where I recount a rather emotional experience of starting to doubt my faith.
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When I attended Moody Bible Institute in the mid 1970s, every student was required, every semester, to do some kind of Christian ministry work. Like all of my fellow students I was completely untrained and unqualified to do the things I did, ...
Continue Reading →Breezing through some old posts today from nearly six years ago, and came across this interesting little anecdote. I’d forgotten I had written about it. A funny personal story about something that actually became important for me.
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My first serious girlfriend was Lynn, whom I met when we were starting our sophomore year in high school. She was funny, personable, attractive, intelligent, and Jewish. I’m not sure I had ever known a Jewish person before her.
I don’t ...
Continue Reading →In this weeks’ Readers’ Mailbag I will be dealing with a personal question, one that I get a good bit (twice this week!). Here is how it came to me from one blog-member
QUESTION:
You should once write an article on time management. Unless you sleep only 2 hours a day, I can’t imagine how you manage to publish lengthy posts, answer all comment questions every day, read lectures at the university(including all the academic responsibilities there: quizzes, exams etc.), read books/papers ...
Continue Reading →In my previous post I blasted from the past about my translation of the Apostolic Fathers for the Loeb Classsical Library. That was actually the first of a few posts on the topic, and since I referred to the next ones, I thought I should give them — at least the one that followed. Here it is. As I point out, in a way it’s about how, in a concrete way, life is a series of chances…..
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It seems ...
Continue Reading →In this week’s readers’ mailbag I deal with a personal question about my background and whether it gave me and advantages or disadvantages in my rather unusual line of work as a secular scholar of the Bible.
QUESTION:
Just as a matter of empirical fact, do you think that your religious background gave you any (intellectual) advantages, or disadvantages, in your work over someone who lacked that background?
RESPONSE:
Every now and then I look back on my life and think: Wow, now ...
Continue Reading →I’ve decided to answer a personal question in this week’s Readers’ Mailbag, about how my relationships with others changed as I went from being a very conservative evangelical Christian to becoming an agnostic/atheist.
QUESTION
Would you be willing to elaborate on how your changing views affected your relationships with friends and family and how people reacted to your changing perspective? Thanks so much!
RESPONSE
As it turns out, in my case, the biggest “problem” for my relationships with family and friends was not so ...
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