The Logos Academic Blog
Although the image of the lone scholar is prominent, it is not really accurate. All of us need other scholars to sharpen our ideas and to gain new viewpoints on the texts. As a result, it is important for scholars to be humble regarding their ideas and to be able to work with others. [Read more…]
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. [Read more…]
Always be willing to see your own weaknesses and strengths and know when to seek help.
Always be willing, hoping, to have your argument proved false, but don’t give up.
Reconsider, redesign, and rediscover.
~Karen Langton, Postgraduate Researcher, University of Birmingham
The kind of biblical scholar that I admire is someone who has a contagious passion for understanding the text in all of its facets, a calling from God that compels them, and the desire and ability to contribute in meaningful ways to both the academy and the church.
~John Anthony Dunne, Assistant Professor of New Testament, Bethel University
John also manages and posts regularly at The Two Cities.
We continue our series on the qualities and practices of good biblical scholar with the esteemed Grant Macaskill of Aberdeen University.
I’m sensitive to a number of things on the back of the intellectual humility work I’ve done recently, and obviously such humility would be a key marker: we are all imperfect, finite thinkers, who are dependent on God and on other creaturely thinkers, and have to be open to exchange with others if truth is to be comprehended. John Barclay, Simon Gathercole or Loren Stuckenbruck are all lovely examples, I think, of such openness, by contrast to some others who may be rather more entrenched in their own positions. [Read more…]