With various helpful videos in the internet about helping us understand the modern world by asking "what if the world were 100 people" I have had in my mind to make something similar for my own discipline, namely what would the Roman Empire look like if it were 100 people during Jesus' day?
As a teacher and a scholar of the New Testament, I’m passionate about good resources for Bible study. The reality is that most of the best resources cost something, particularly the more in-depth resources. But, the good news is that there are still a number of great resources that don’t cost a dime.
I am teaching for the first time a class on the Gospel of John, and having a great time doing so. One of the first things I tackled in the class was authorship – namely, who is the Beloved Disciple, the author of the Gospel?
I'll make a confession on behalf of all professors: we dislike poorly formatted papers. And while students may find it nitpicky, there are actually very good reasons for properly formatting an assignment. It allows the professor to focus on your content, rather than getting distracted by how presentation.
It has been awhile since I made a YouTube video and thought it was about time! I chose a passage of scripture that for pretty much my entire Christian life I have seen misused in the context of a communion service. Let me know your thoughts in the comments, and please be sure to share this post if you liked the video, so more can see it! (below is a transcript if you'd rather read it than watch it).
I have earbuds in my ears a lot. I love reclaiming time, or multiplying my time, by listening to something while doing something that doesn't require my ear attention. Yard work, driving, watching my kids play soccer, walking to work, exercising – all of these are times when I can listen to podcasts without affecting whatever else I am busy with
I am launching a new product today for my fellow colleagues in Biblical Studies and theology called A Digital Supplement for the SBL Style Guide, 2nd Ed. A big thanks to my TA Evan Colford for helping me finalize this product and get it ready for distribution.
The simple truth is that most scholars and pastors are bibliophiles. We like to build our library. We like having lots of books. We jump at the chance for free books. And we're pretty regularly spending money on new books. While I personally now prefer to have my books in Logos format, not every book makes it into the Logos library, so there will always be books on my shelf. Lots of books in fact.
With the advent of Logos 6 comes some great new features for both pastors and scholars. Over the next little while, I want to highlight some features that I feel really stand out for scholars in particular. The first is the new Ancient Literature Dataset
Where Did The Greek Deponents Go? Answer - they never existed in the first place. I learned Greek from David Alan Black’s book Learn to Read New Testament Greek. But over the course of teaching introduction to Greek and developing mobile apps to learn Biblical Greek, I have become familiar with all of the major intro Greek grammars and have now written my own too.
Those of you in the field of Biblical Studies know that it is important to keep your eyes out on the latest journal publications. Even if you don't read every article, you want to keep an eye out on the articles coming out so that you can keep on top of areas of your own interest. Even for those articles that aren't in your area of interest, reading the abstracts quickly on new articles is a great practice to cultivate.
During my final year in seminary I watched a video that interviewed Dr. Andrew MacRae and several of the ADC alumnus. I don't remember the class I was in, and I don't even remember why we were watching the video. But there is one thing that stuck out in my mind, and it was a question they asked the alumnus they talked to: "what are some of the most important books on your bookshelf." Every single one of them said it was their commentaries.
