This week I am devoting my time to finishing work on my dissertation for publication. A publisher had accepted it pending various revisions in 2006. So now I am in the home stretch and hope to ship it off to them by the end of this week.

This is a picture of our group at work in Jerusalem. We hail from a number of different institutions. It has been a real honor to work with these scholars. Starting front left then going clockwise:

Michael WIlkins, Craig Evans, Brent Kinman, Rikk Watts, yours truly, Darrell Bock, Klyne Snodgrass, Grant Osborne, Bob Webb

Plans are in the works for a second iteration of this group, as this was our last year together.

I'm now back from Israel and into my summer groove. I'll post more regularly over the summer months.

I will be headed to Israel soon for a trip with the IBR Jesus Group. This trip is the culmination of ten years of work in which scholars have examined events in Jesus' life. The results of the investigation will be published in about a year. We will spend time in discussion over papers, but we will also have time for visiting sites. I will post some info as I am able while I'm there.

A quick note on content availability:

The internet has exploded recently with the availability of content. You can now watch an amazing selection of television and movies within a web browser. Case in point: I was not able to watch Bill Moyer's recent interview with Jeremiah Wright on PBS when it was originally broadcast. Fortunately the entire broadcast is available at www.pbs.org. (Check it out at http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/04252008/watch.html.) 

Two points:

I have devoted a great deal of my professional life to the Gospels and Jesus studies. In the evangelical academy, one other huge area of study is Paul. Often it seems as if Jesus and Paul are the only subjects who get any attention in our circles. So my assessment of another major area which needs attention would be the rest of the NT: Hebrews, the general epistles, and Revelation.

This is for two primary reasons:

As a believer in Jesus Christ teaching at a Christian graduate school, I must exercise all my duties in keeping with my faith. Grading is no exception, so here are some thoughts on how as a professor I can grade in a way that honors the Lord.

Grading has always been a hallmark of education at all levels, and there are no signs that it will cease being important and necessary. It can be problematic, but that does not mean that dropping it is a better alternative than retaining it.

Grading has a very important place institutionally. It provides a standard rubric for assessment that can be understood across the curriculum and even across institutions. So it is useful for communication across disciplines, for standardization, and for the completion of the institutional task of education.

Ask any professor about their least favorite task, and you will certainly hear about grading. Usually the metaphors involve emotional or physical pain: "It is an albatross around my neck, the cross I must bear, my thorn in the flesh." I have met no one yet who has a consistently positive attitude towards it. Recently I have thought philosphically about it. Why is grading so difficult? If grading is so painful, why do we continue the practice? How can I grade in a way that is appropriate and even "Christian"? I'll address the first question in this post.

I spent most every free working minute last week on the copy-edited manuscript for the New Reader's Lexicon. It was an arduous process. I read through the entire manuscript (over 700+ pages in the printout we had) looking for any errors or problems. I found about 20 different problems to correct. Now my co-author Jeff Miller has the manuscript. He will do the same thing I did this week. We will likely meet together at the end of the week to compare notes and put our heads together on anything which needs a mutual decision.