Call for Papers: The North American Patristics Society
The North American Patristics Society (NAPS) will have its annual meeting on May 27-29, 2010 in chicago. The call for papers is now available online. You can submit a paper to the general pool or to the following subject areas: Gender and Nag Hammadi (Chairs: Katherine Veach and Nathan Bennett) The Reception and Interpretation of Sacred Texts in Early Christianity: The Transfiguration (Chairs: Jeffrey Bingham and Bogdan G. Bucur) Religion and Society in Syrian Antioch (Chair: Wendy Mayer) The Rhetoric of Heaven (C

Luke Timothy Johnson on Biblical Theology
What is the unifying principle of the New Testament? Is there one? If not, is it possible to do biblical theology without distorting the text somehow? Is performing New Testament theology a legitimate task? Luke Johnson doesn’t seem to think so: Since the canon consists of a disparate collection of writings, with both the Old Testament and New Testament forming the Christian Bible, it resists reduction to any single unifying principle imposed from without as much as it lacks any explicit unifying principle within. If it excludes by its nature any “canon within the canon,” it certainly also resists any conceptual mold that either relativizes or removes

Loren Rosson and the Most Thought-provoking Books
Loren Rosson has put together a nice list of books on the New Testament that he considers the most thought-provoking books of the past five years. He lists twelve books that, he says, “grab our attention and challenge us to see things we may not be inclined to see, for better or worse.” Of the twelve books, I’ve only read or seriously worked through six of them, so I’ve got some catching up to do. Congrats to Loren for five years of excellent blogging. Is it coincidental that four of the authors listed are also bloggers (Stephen Carlson, April DeConick, James Cros

A New Use for the SBL Tote Bag
I presume that Clawdius (aka Monster) wanted to meet Jim West so bad that he jumped in the SBL tote bag hoping I’d bring him along to New Orleans. Silly cat. I do hope that this year’s tote bags are as nice as the ones we got in Boston.

Penniman’s Series on PhD Programs
John Penniman, a former classmate of mine at Candler and PhD student in Theology at Fordham University, has just completed his series of posts on How to Get Accepted to a Theology/Religion PhD Program. John has clearly spent a good deal of time thinking over these issues and his posts reflect a very thoughtful and helpful guide to this mess. Though he focuses mainly on “theology,” this series is applicable to programs in biblical studies as well. This is the best blog series I’ve read on this topic, so if you’re interested in doing PhD work in religion or theology, make sure to give these a read. Well done, John.