Selling your UK PhD to employers

Last updated on: May 31, 2009 at 9:59 pm By Nijay Gupta

I recently interviewed for an academic job (unsuccessfully!) and for the second time now the issue came up of uk phd students having too narrow expertise. If you are only researching for your thesis and not taking courses, does that not make you incapable of teaching more broadly? This is the kind of issue you may have to deal with if you do your phd in the UK. Here are some ways to deal with this: Before your phd: choose... Read more

New Interpreter’s Dict of the Bible I-Ma (vol. 3): notes

Last updated on: May 29, 2009 at 6:08 am By Nijay Gupta

I just received for review the New Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible I-Ma (Vol. 3) (Abingdon, 2008). I have the first two volumes and I have found the articles to be well-written and the contributors are highly respected scholars internationally. How does it compare with the Anchor Bible Dictionary? First, there are less volumes and less space given to any entry. Secondly, the NIDB is directed towards pastors and seminarians, rather than being a more critical-scholarly reference. Nevertheless, end-of-entry bibliographies... Read more

Bookstore page added

Last updated on: May 28, 2009 at 5:23 pm By Nijay Gupta

Please note that I have added a bookstore page (see tabs at top of blog). I will continue to expand what is in there, but I thought it might be nice to highlight what I think are the best commentaries, survey books, textbooks, scholarship, etc… The bookstore is still a work-in-progress, but I have added several titles under the ‘commentaries’ category along with my own annotations on why I like the particular volume. These will be short comments, but may... Read more

Bibleworks 8 (Review Part 1): First Impressions

Last updated on: May 27, 2009 at 10:48 pm By Nijay Gupta

I installed the version 8 upgrade of Bibleworks yesterday. I am very excited to have this new version and I have already found many of the new features very useful. Here are some first impressions that are noteworthy. – Many features seem streamlined without the kind of total-changeover that can be daunting to users familiar with the way BW works. Its the little things that make a difference. For instance, when you want to change the Bible version you are... Read more

Need Help from Greco-Roman specialists…

Last updated on: May 26, 2009 at 2:50 pm By Nijay Gupta

I am doing some research on the history, habits, strategies, ethos, and organization of the Roman Army from its inception to the the end of the first century AD. I can find books on the Roman army relatively well (though suggestions of highly respected authors and sources are welcome!). I need to get to know the most respected journals in which to look. Who can help me out? What online resources are there for searching journals of classics and ancient... Read more

Review of Dunn’ BFJ (Sources)

Last updated on: May 25, 2009 at 11:18 pm By Nijay Gupta

In our last post on Dunn’s Beginning from Jerusalem we noted his discussion of how a Jewish sect became a Gentile religion (i.e. Jesus to Paul). Dunn goes on (in ch. 20) to discussion various solutions to this issue including F.C. Baur’s approach, the history-of-religions approach, gnosticism theories, and sociological approaches. Dunn sees that a solution can only be found when one reckons with this question: ‘What was it that caused the first Christian evangelists to take the gospel to... Read more

Converting from Bibleworks Greek to Unicode

Last updated on: May 25, 2009 at 8:07 pm By Nijay Gupta

I have been asked in some comments how I convert from Bibleworks font to unicode in a Word doc. It can all be done within Word’s add-in function once you install Galaxie’s biblescript program. See HERE. On such matters and more see Mark Hoffmann’s excellent post HERE. Read more

James Dunn and New Testament Theology

Last updated on: May 25, 2009 at 10:15 am By Nijay Gupta

Ok. It is purely coincidence that I have mentioned Dunn in most of my recent posts, but he is deserving of yet another one. I just saw an announcement of a new New Testament Theology by Dunn (Abingdon, 2009). It appears that it should be available in June or July. See description below: In this third volume in the Library of Biblical Theology series, James D.G. Dunn ranges widely across the literature of the New Testament to describe the essential... Read more

In Defense of Academic Generalists

Last updated on: May 25, 2009 at 5:34 am By Nijay Gupta

I have now seen several posts on Mike Bird and Craig Keener’s excellent little article in the SBL forum on being academic generalists (see HERE). I very much resonated with what Bird and Keener had to say. For one’s thesis research he or she will no doubt focus and learn much about one area (or perhaps two). But, it pays to be appreciative of or attentive to other fields of research. For me, the decision to be a generalists was... Read more

Dunn’s BfJ (The Quest for the Historical Church)

Last updated on: May 20, 2009 at 9:39 pm By Nijay Gupta

This is the first installment of my review of James D.G. Dunn’s Beginning from Jerusalem (Eerdmans, 2009) where this master theologian and biblical historian treats the emergence of ‘Christianity’ in the period 30-70CE. The first chapter (ch. 20, following the chapter numbering ending from Jesus Remembered) engages in the ‘quest for the historical church’. ‘After Jesus, how did it all begin?’ (3). Here Dunn picks up on a major issue. What do we identity as the ‘it’? Can we realistically... Read more