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Why aren’t there more Evangelicals in Patristics (3): Evangelical seminary curricula usually have one Early Church History course, and it's intro level, so they overwhelmingly get a non-specialist to teach it.

(Parts 1, 2) Patristics is, I confess, a research-oriented field for most of us. It’s not the most directly relevant to all aspects of training future ministers and missionaries, so it’s not a surprise that in Evangelical seminaries, focused for the main part on training people for

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Upcoming ‘brief reviews’ and why it’s so hard to review language textbooks anyway.

I have an inordinate affection for language textbooks. They always promise so much. And, having worked with more than a few, both as a learner and a tutor, the more you get to know them, the more you get to know their ins and outs. Unfortunately, it’s very hard

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Upcoming ‘brief reviews’ and why it’s so hard to review language textbooks anyway.

I have an inordinate affection for language textbooks. They always promise so much. And, having worked with more than a few, both as a learner and a tutor, the more you get to know them, the more you get to know their ins and outs. Unfortunately, it’s very hard

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Why aren’t there more Evangelicals in Patristics (2): Evangelicals have a deeply problematic tendency to read early church history through a reformation lens.

(See first post in this series here) Evangelicals, like all Protestants, tend to define themselves in terms of Reformation distinctives, which has its pros and cons. I think the Reformation (re)discovered important theological and biblical truths and rightly called for a reform of the Catholic Church as it then

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Why aren’t there more Evangelicals in Patristics (2): Evangelicals have a deeply problematic tendency to read early church history through a reformation lens

Evangelicals, like all Protestants, tend to define themselves in terms of Reformation distinctives, which has its pros and cons. I think the Reformation (re)discovered important theological and biblical truths and rightly called for a reform of the Catholic Church as it then stood in Western Europe. However, it also

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2-track and 3-track revision strategies

Last week I shared a simple strategy for reading, by grouping your reading in section of three units, and advancing one unit at a time, thus ensuring you read each unit three times over. This week I have another strategy to share, which is similar in process, in that it’

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Why aren’t there more Evangelicals in Patristics (1): Some Evs aren't sure there were any Christians between Paul and Luther.

Recently on twitter I suggested a number of reasons why there are relatively few Evangelicals involved in Patristics as an academic field. I felt that it wouldn’t be a waste of time to expand some of those thoughts into more considered reflections (as did Brandon Smith) Saying that, these

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Reading in 3s

This was mentioned to me by a student recently in a small group class that I am kind-of mentoring, and I think it’s worth adapting and sharing. The original idea, or at least where the student got it from, is Daniel Wallace, here. It’s the idea that

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From a recent talk on the creeds

Creeds originated as a confession of faith for believers to express their core convictions, especially in the context of instruction for, and the practice of, baptism. They took the essential elements of the Christian faith, as taught and held by the church consistently across the world, and framed that around

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Thoughts on copyright and ancient texts in modern editions

What exactly is the copyright status of ancient texts in modern editions? Nobody knows and most of us are too afraid to find out. I'm not a lawyer, and this is not a legal opinion, but it is an opinion about legal matters. Also, copyright legislation differs from

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Some rambling thoughts on an ideal ancient languages classroom

A response to Fran’s comments here. I don’t think anything I have to say here is particularly new, from my perspective, in that I haven’t changed my views that much in the past couple of years. An old but still valid post on this topic is here.

Greek

Mastronarde's Introduction to Attic Greek

Well let's have another brief review, shall we? Mastronarde's Introduction to Attic Greek dates back to 1993, at least, and has long been in use at UC Berkeley, and elsewhere. A second edition was released in 2013, though I am only familiar with the first edition.