For me personally, a good biblical scholar is someone who enriches the discipline not only, and not even primarily, through his or her publications, but also through the way he or she interacts with colleagues, especially those who do not yet hold powerful positions or might never do so.
I am reminded of people for whom self-interest is not only topped by enthusiasm for the subject matter of the discipline but also by an interest in the individuals who constitute that field, persons you can rely on, always willing to support, without envy or ulterior motives, rejoicing over your successes, sharing the pain of your daily struggles as a scholar.
In particular, I am thinking of the kind of senior scholar who carefully reads through an article by a graduate student that interacts with the work of that expert and who then gives gracious and motivating feedback … a person who does not consider him- or herself to be too good for waving across the book hall at SBL upon recognizing a former student or acquaintance … someone, who is not only aware of the manifold and crushing pressures that young scholars feel within today’s academia, but who also works actively towards creating an environment that allows for free spaces, creative development, and individual career paths.
~Christoph Heilig, Researcher, University of Zürich
I wholeheartedly agree—scholarship that builds others and freely embraces the collegiality of the academe, both young and old.
Biblical studies, Biblical scholarship, and Biblical theology should foster the atmosphere of mutual collabouring, collegial respect, and Christian kindness to ward one an other, especially to wards the new and rising Biblical students, scholars, theologians, and exegetes.
Biblical exegesis should all ways be viewed with in the lens of Christian trueth, love, joy, and peace, so that Biblical scholars, exegetes, and theologians should all ways exhibit the true Christian virtues of love, joy, and peace to wards one an other, both with in and with out the “house hold of faith”.
The LORD Jesus Christ taught, mingled, rebuked, proclaimed, and assayed all ways in trueth and love, in kindness, mercy, and compassion: He should be the model for every Biblical scholar, exegete, student, theologian, and teacher.