The Next Post on my Blog

I had another post drafted, much like the previous one, but I canned it.

I was going to make a series of posts on education, but I don’t feel like it.

Instead, my future posts will focus on the actual thing I sort of pictured this blog would be about: the New Testament. See, I’m co-authoring an exegetical commentary on Acts, and a commentary on a classical historian, am publishing my dissertation, and am either prepping courses, studying language, and/or reading daily. So there’s more than enough going on to make the blog what it should be: a place for some deeper insights into the New Testament for everyone.

I’m very happy to answer any and all questions about school reading, writing, exams, publications, etc. It’s still of massive interest to me. I just don’t want to write about it here. I was going to do one post on whether or not you should go to school, one on reading/writing/exams, one on languages, etc. Instead of all those tedious posts, I’m going to do a short version of each below.

1. Should you go to (grad) school?

First, read this website. It may not all apply to you (I find that some good Christian schools, for example, avoid much of this). But it may also be the sober dose of reality you need.

1. I assume the big “school” question is grad school. I’m thinking of humanities/divinity education. My shortest answer is this: if you really want to, then no one will stop you, and you will/should go ahead.

2. Just make sure that desire isn’t vicious and isn’t based on image.

   1. How will you know?

   2. You should know if you really are in love with something. This can help.

   3. It’s for you to figure out. Frequent long walks in silence should do it.

3. If you don’t make sure your heart is pure at the outset, then school will probably do a pretty bad number on you.

4. Find a good school.

   1. Schools are a dime a dozen, and many Christian colleges and seminaries are happy to take your money and give you a mediocre education.

   2. By my lights, a good school makes room for small communities, requires lots of reading and writing and gives you time to do it. A good school isn’t focused on image and if it has to choose, values faculty over facility (i.e., paying a prof a living wage is better than a deluxe espresso bar). Good faculty care the subjects and the students they teach, and a good school has good faculty. A good school is rigorous, and emphasizes the study of language.

      1. Note I said “language” and not “languages.” Focus on language means a focus on progress in reading, writing, speaking, and thinking, and also on actually learning to read and understand target languages. Learning to read and learning at least one language will do more for you than 100 “practical” courses in our fields.

5. The good school should be as reputable as possible if you are at all concerned with more school, a career, etc. Not prestige for its own sake, but the best schools used to be the most reputable. It isn’t the case now, however, some are still both. Find one. You don’t need to agree ideologically or theologically with everything; it’s great if you do, and great if you don’t—so long as you can be yourself and have a genuinely open-minded approach.

6. Don’t go into debt. Just take fewer courses, and work. You will be less insecure, will be able to afford school, and may have an easy out if school isn’t for you.

2. How to read/write etc.?

1. Read Mortimer Adler’s book, How to Read a Book. Don’t read any newer books with the same title by people pretending to offer something better. Adler is a classic for a reason.

2. As far as writing goes, if you think and talk a lot, and read a lot, then you already have a voice. Just hone it by writing a lot. Focus on comprehensibility, don’t be too stuffy academically, but realize that too much poetic honey is sickening; save that for your journals. Try to be a bit of a better version of yourself. Be serious, clear, honest, and lighthearted whenever possible. Humour is only good if it’s natural, unplanned, sparing, uniquely you, and subtle.

   1. Writing exams is a different thing. I aced my comprehensive exams because I came up with an excellent plan. Here is the plan:

      1. Do some combination of inspectional, analytic, and syntopical reading of all your materials (these terms come from Adler; there are summaries online).

         1. This does not mean reading every single item line by line in detail: you’ll never finish if you do. First do an inspection to see what you don’t know in the book (you’ll know a lot in surveys, introductions, and the like); then mark out what you think you need to know, and read that material. Skim what you already know in there, and focus in and analyze what is novel, central, and critical. For some books, this will take no more than half a day. Other books will require days because of how they are written (e.g., if they are by pre-twentieth-century German philosophers).

      2. Take notes on all books/papers you have to read. I prepared “book briefs,” which were ~ one-page summaries of every book’s argument and contribution to the field, as I saw it.

      3. Write a series of short essays on big themes/ideas in the topic (e.g., the family in the Roman empire; major debates in the study of X material; schools of thought in historical method).

         1. The essays should be short (3 to 5 pages), consist only of clear, hierarchical statements drawing from reading material, and be outlined in a memorable and clear way (use an acronym).

         2. I did three essays for every topic, being sure that every book I had read was touched on in some essay.

      4. Memorize your essays by treating them as mini lectures.

         1. Start by memorizing the outline, then work point by point. Get to the place where you can call, from memory, on books and authors in support of a point.

      5. If you have oral comprehensives based on written ones (like I did), then make “exam briefs” where you prepare 10-20 briefs, 1-2 paragraphs long, based on your written answers.

   2. If you actually do the readings, and think your own thoughts about them, and do as I say above, you’ll excel.

3. What about the teaching vocation?

I wrote a paper on the teaching vocation a few years ago. It touches on education as a vocation, as an avocation, on the nature of teaching and study, etc. You might like it. I’ll send it to anyone who asks. It was for a PhD seminar in teaching/pedagogy.

4. Language

Language, and specifically ancient Greek, is near and dear to me and will definitely feature in this blog and so I’ll save fuller comments for a later time.

I have long advocated to peers, students, and anyone who will listen the need to actually learn to read and understand the language you are supposed to be studying (in my case, ancient Greek is the preeminent language of classical antiquity, New Testament studies, and early Christianity).

Here’s a story and a good metric: the external examiner for my PhD was a classical philologist trained at UCLA in the 70s; he is an expert in Greek language, in Homer, and had published monographs on the language and literature of the New Testament. I came in with my Greek New Testament and my dissertation. His first comment to me was that he noticed my Greek New Testament, and he asked me to open it up to a certain passage, and we began to read and discuss and debate the text and my interpretation of it. I felt totally able to do this, and of course had no idea I would need to. Three years of Greek grammar in my first theology degree didn’t exactly prepare me to do this (while it was a great experience): what prepared me was long-term, extensive study on my own, especially shifting my focus towards reading comprehension over the years, in addition to study in linguistics and grammar.

The point is that if you are studying a field that has target texts in a foreign language, you should learn that language. I don’t “know” Greek as I would like to, but I’m fairly comfortable in the biblical texts (New Testament and LXX) and well beyond before and after them. The catch is that I still need to devote hours each week to improving my ability, and this is no one’s requirement but my own. You should do the same.

Note: while I spent a few years feeling bad that I didn’t first learn Attic, and so I worked through more than a couple “systems” of reading classical Greek (JACT Reading Greek, Athenaze, Cultura Classica books, James Morwood books, and of course reading classical texts on their own), I’ve since become re-enamoured with the later Greek of the Hellenistic age. I’ll talk more about this in the future, but suffice it to say that one can certainly find the requisite vocabulary and syntax in the Koine/Hellenistic corpus (which far exceeds the Attic corpus) to form a basis of knowledge for ancient Greek in general. And since the New Testament, early Christian lit., Hellenistic historians, Hellenistic philosophers (including those who straddle the line, like Aristotle), and writers of other kinds (novelists, scientists, etc.), in addition to the papyri, all belong to the Hellenistic/Koine dialect, there is so much of interest already there.

In the future, I’d definitely like to lay out my own ideal plan of teaching/learning Greek, and a case for why it’s important. I’ve had much of this written for some time, but I am always tinkering on it.

Future posts

As I say, I’m working on two big writing projects. I might use the blog as a way to share some thoughts and notes and side comments on the work, e.g., on the book of Acts as I prepare my own comments. This wouldn’t overlap with the commentary, but would be preliminary reflections on the text, perhaps. Maybe you’d like that. I think I’d like to write about that. The answers to everything are in those texts.

I don’t want to paywall anything on the blog, but if I—struggling academic that I am—am able to write consistently on what I’ve outlined, and you benefit from it, by all means feel free to shower me in gifts (cash, not kind).