I want to suspend for a time – not cancel altogether! – the thread I have been pursuing on how I came to be interested in the textual criticism of the New Testament, which itself is a spin-off (using roughly similar metaphors) of the bigger thread that I started, which at the time of inception I anticipated would be all of two posts long, of why I ended up being equipped to write trade books more than most of my colleagues who were doing research that, on the surface, seemed to be far more amenable to trade books. But I want to suspend the thread for now, to be resumed soon, because there is something else I’m particularly interested in and I want to strike it while the iron is hot.  I’m flying off to Denmark on Sunday to give a lecture and a couple of academic discussions at the University of Southern Denmark.  The topic:  the relationship between the worship of the Roman emperor (the “imperial cult”) and the rise of Christology (the understanding [...]