Presenting Academic Papers

For any interested in presenting academic papers in the near or distant future, I thought this might be a helpful link to catalogue.

More UK vs US PhD Advice

This time from Mark Goodacre.

What's Become of Scotland?

For the last 5 - 10 years, maybe more, Aberdeen has been the place to do Biblical Studies, particularly at the Post Grad level. There NT department in recent years, in particular, has been one of their strong suits. Much discussion has taken place in the blogosphere in the last year or suggesting that Scotland was replacing the "Oxbridge" axis as the place to do biblical and theological studies, with leading scholars like Bauckham and Longenecker at St. Andrews, Hurtado at Edinburough and Marshall, Clarke, Watson, Gathercole and Williams at Aberdeen. Yet with Bauckham stepping down next year and the impending exodus from Aberdeen, things may be tilting bank towards cheery ole England. With Gathercole and Williams going to Cambridge and Watson heading to Durham, it will be interesting to see who the replacements are. In fact, Marshall is already an emeritus professor, so it is open to speculation as to how long it will be before he retires.

I'm always curious about the events that transpire behind the scenes of such transitions. If you haven't heard the story about how Grudem ended up leaving TEDS for Phoenix, you should listen to his audio interview at 9 Marks; it's fascinating...and probably not what you'd expect.

More Good Stuff from Nijay Gupta

I've already linked to a number of good resources from his blog and if you're considering post grad studies, you may as well make his blog one of your favorites. Nevertheless, for ease of my own access, I wanted to point out two more great posts, from a little ways back:

Suggestions for composing book reviews for publication here and here.

Suggestions for your thesis oral defense here.

Some more misc. stuff...

Though it's probably not normally good blog etiquette to repost a previous post, this is worth it. I don't know who created this database, or why it's free of charge, but if you haven't found occasion to use the gethuman database, you'll want to save it to your favorites for when you may need it. I'm reposting the link today because I used it today for the first time. My Mom's flying in US Airways and there've been some complications with her connections. We were trying to find out what was going on and my wife had been on hold waiting to speak to a person with US Airways for 10 minutes. I decided to give the database a shot. I pulled it up, dialed the 800 number they had listed, hit 4 then 1, just like it said and was immediately speaking to a human. By the time my wife got a representative to access my mom's info, I had already booked her on another flight and hung up the phone. The rep my wife had was able to confirm the info already. Cool stuff. If only all of life were that simple.

Also, I came across another valuable NT resource site, this one sponsored by Roy Ciampa at GCTS. Check it out here.
(HT: Nijay Gupta)

Finally, how bout a UK PhD without having to leave the states (until your viva)? Check it out here, but it would mean having to live in MN. Yuck, except it would be sweet to go to Bethlehem. It's through evangelical institutions (versus a Uni), so it depends on what you're looking for; nevertheless, only $12,000 a year and no classwork - hard to dismiss.
(HT: Dunelm Road)

Good Stuff around the Web

I came across a few follow up resources for the previous two posts: If you're planning on working on a PhD in Biblical studies in the next several years, this is a must read! I'll forewarn you, it's 40 pages long and you may want to print it off, but if a 40 page essay daunts you, you may need to reconsider PhD plans anyway :-)

(HT: Dunelm Road)

Second, there's a great review of Bauckham's Eyewitnesses by Blomberg here. Fascinating...I din't know Bauckham was retiring.

Finally, a sweet sneak peek from Paul Helm here -- also cool because I didn't know he had a blog!

(HT: Justin Taylor)

Resources for Planning a UK PhD

I recently came across a blog that I've found tremendously helpful in bringing my PhD scheming and dreaming back down to earth. The blog is Dunelm Road and is the product of a PhD student at Durham who goes by the name of Ben. He's offered a ton of helpful insights -- from moving tips, to financing; from medical care to thesis proposal length (don't miss the comments sections) -- all of which he's gone through first hand and (more importantly) recently. He's a ThM from Dallas and very gracious and helpful. If you're thinking British PhD, it's well worth your time.