Ramping up for 2014

Over the past year, I have been posting somewhat sporadically on this blog, mostly about topics related to my field of specialty - Biblical Studies. My purpose for starting this blog was initially to simply share my thoughts about this and that (hence the title) and to become more disciplined about writing regularly. As I pursue my studies, one of my goals is to publish books and articles in a number of fields, but especially related to Biblical Studies. In looking back at this blog over the previous year, it does not seem that I was particularly successful in being a disciplined writer, as my posts were sporadic with months at times going by without any updates.

But appearances can be deceiving. In December I graduated from Asbury Theological Seminary with a Master of Arts degree in Biblical Studies. Over the past year, I have actually been a very disciplined writer, producing several hundred pages of research papers for my classes. This prevented me from dedicating the amount of time I would have liked to this blog.

Now that I have graduated, one of my goals is to develop this blog into a website that readers find useful and entertaining to read. I'm narrowing the scope of the site to focus on the intersection of history and theology (particularly Orthodox theology) in the interpretation of Scripture. This is a topic I feel strongly about for several reasons:

• There is a general sense of biblical illiteracy among Christians, especially those of my own Eastern Orthodox tradition.
• There are very few Orthodox biblical scholars in the world today. That means on the one hand that Orthodox Christians are not exposed to the historical and cultural contexts of the Scriptures, while on the other that many non-Orthodox Christians (as well as non-Christians for that matter) are not exposed to the ways the Scriptural texts are illuminated by the deep well of Orthodox theology, as expressed through patristic interpretation, liturgy, iconography, and holy tradition.
• In general, many scholars and lay students of the Bible overemphasize either theology or history at the expense of the other. Within my own ecclesial tradition, it seems to me that there is a general tendency among theologians today, in the spirit of postmodernism, to completely neglect the historical dimensions of the Scriptures for the sake of theology. I agree with N. T. Wright on the topic: What God has joined together let no man put asunder. I am convinced that we cannot divorce theology from history as Orthodox Christians.

In the coming months, look for the following from this site:

• Each Tuesday, a post examining some topic related to the intersection of theology and history in scriptural interpretation.
• Each Thursday, a "What I'm Reading" post, consisting either in a short review or a brief excerpt from books/articles that I'm reading related to the focus of the site.

I hope you all enjoy what I have to say, and I'd love to hear from you in the Comments section of each post.

See you Thursday...