The Greek New Testament: Textus Receptus, Reader's Edition (Grange Press)

 We live in an era that boasts of an embarrassment of riches for serious students of Greek, including a plethora of Greek New Testaments of all stripes. Yet for somebody like me (and most of my students) that favors traditional text-based Greek NTs over critical text/eclectic Greek NTs  (I especially favor the Robinson-Pierpont Byzantine, but also the various TRs and the Hodges-Farstad Majority Text), it is unfortunate that almost all of the various tools (e.g., reader's lexicons, textual commentaries) are geared towards critical text GNTs.

I was ecstatic, then, to recently discover The Greek New Testament: Textus Receptus, Reader's Edition, published in 2024 by Grange Press (Taylors, SC). This solves a specific need that I have had in my Greek classes here at BCM: a TR-based tool that provides almost all of the vocabulary that my students have not learned (given in side margins, see below), so that in theory a Bible student can, with three semesters' worth of Greek vocabulary, read through the entire Greek New Testament on their own without any additional helps.

The GNT:TR,RE, by official decree (specifically mine, but with my boss' blessing) now becomes the Greek New Testament of the Greek classes of our college, and will be used in translation projects, quizzes, tests, personal reading, etc. It replaces both the TBS TR that we had been using, as well as Burer and Miller's Reader's Lexicon which, though valuable, was critical-text based, gave away too many words, and is so radically free in some of its glosses it makes the NLT look like Young's Literal! (E.g., Colossians 2:24, klēronomia as "transcendent salvation." Seriously??!??!?! That's so loose of a translation that it virtually confuses sense with reference!).

Now, I do have one quibble with the GNT:TR,RE. Whereas Burer and Miller's Reader's Lexicon gave too many definitions, the GNT:TR,RE gives too few, at least for our Greek program. Basically, it provides words that occur 30 times or less, whereas my students after three semesters are supposed to know all words that occur 34x or more. To fix the gap, I basically created a handout of 38 words that they can stick in their New Testament, drawn from Metzger's Lexical Aids for Students of New Testament Greek, with my slight modification on a few words.

I should note that the GNT:TR,RE (which is Scrivner's TR) also incudes a brief "Publisher's Introduction" that contains a defense of the TR and a criticism of eclectic methodology; I agree with much of what is written there, though naturally I would often phrase things a bit differently and would suggest that it may, perhaps, be a bit too polemic for an academic defense per se (to be fair, I write in my role as an ivory-tower academic, not a pastor). The GNT:TR,RE also includes F. H. A. Scrivner's Preface to the 1633 Novum Testamentum Graece). Significantly, the GNT:TR,RE claims a "Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License," which means that "You re free to copy or redistribute this material in any medium or format with attribution and for non-commercial purposes only." I will also note that, as a hardcover book, at $37.50 plus S&H, this is a pretty good deal!

A New Theological Journal (Promissio), and how to analyze and rank it.

**Corrected "per page" to per paper" on 3/11/2026.** 

I was interested to discover a new online journal the other day, Promissio: A Journal of Confessing Theology (open access, click here), with Winter 2026 being the first issue. My initial impression of it is fairly positive. In the midst of my ongoing quest to become the most thorough and helpful chronicler of academic journals for biblical studies, however, this new journal raises two questions for me: (1) How do I know it's legit? and (2) Where do I rank it in my list?

The first question becomes all the more significant since there are "predatory journals" out there even in biblical studies (I have seen them) that are not qualified to publish articles, and there are also journals, such as Religions and HTS Theological Studies that I would not consider "predatory" but which nonetheless have dubious academic credentials because they charge authors exorbitant prices while mass-producing hundreds of articles a year. Let me illustrate that with Religions: in 2024, this journal published 12 online-only issues. The first issue (Jan 2024) contained 140 articles. The second issue contained 110 articles. The twelth issue contained 159 articles. Average that out over 12 issues = 136 articles per issue (even though a few of those would have been invited articles, free from the authorial charge). Now Religions, as of June 2025, charges $2,193.15 per paper converting from Swiss Francs). If we subtract 36 articles an issue, on average, as invited articles and thus free from charge, we end up with 1,200 articles a year, which comes out to more-or-less $219,300 a year from "Article Processing Charges." This is absurd, and most definitely the complete opposite of best practices for academic journals in biblical studies. In my opinion HTS Theological Studies is even less respectable than Religions these days, because in addition to their similarly-staggering author fees and mass-producing of articles, they have had to retract quite a few articles (e.g., vol. 79, no. 4; August 2023) and published (without retraction) an article that defended Haman and seemed to imply that the Jewish people were villains in the book of Esther (see my response in JSOT).

Now, I am pleased to report that Promissio passes that first test, evidencing no hint of profit-based mass-production. The journal does not, so far as I can tell, require that the author pays (and in my opinion no respectable journal in Biblical Studies, to my knowledge, does charges authors with the exception of OTE [at much lower rates than Religions]). In addition, the first issue has a very reasonable four main articles plus two review articles.

The second test is to check the editorial board. I sampled three, including Paul R. Hinlicky (general editor), who is quite well-published as a Lutheran theologian, clearly an excellent choice to add academic credibility to a journal. I had more difficulty analyzing the two others on the editorial board I randomly chose, however, in that they seemed to lack credentials in the area of peer-reviewed scholarship. Now, the journal does state that "All manuscripts for publication are reviewed by two scholarly peers in the area of the subject matter"; still, my main question for Promissio would be: "Are the peer-reviewers for the various articles themselves published specialists in regards to the content of the paper?" A fair analysis in this regard, however, would require a more thorough analysis of the editorial advisors and their CVs.

The third test would be to look at the journal's description of itself and its description of the article submission process. Both of them are generally solid, from an academic perspective, with one area of extra commendation. The journal's purpose can be summed up in this paragraph:

"The title of the journal, Promissio, points to the essential form of the word of God as the promise of forgiveness, life and salvation vouchsafed for us in the resurrection of Jesus the crucified Messiah. The subtitle of our journal points to the theological task as confessing concretely the liberating Lordship of Jesus with all that entails in the articles (articulations) of the faith in him for every new context as that has been heard afresh in the proclamation of the promising gospel. Promissio will be a journal that does confessing theology in continuity with the Lutheran Reformation by integrating the disciplines of theological exegesis of Scripture, church history, dogmatics and missiology that have been harmfully siloed in the modern period."

The area of extra commendation is that Promissio specifically mentions retractions and how it would handle them, not something I've seen too often in other journals.

One minor note regarding the design of the website (in case anybody from the editorial staff happens to read this): As of writing (2/27/26, 11:43 am Central US time) the page entitled "About the Journal" does not actually appear in the drop-down menu entitled "about." Consequently, it's a bit difficult to find the "About the Journal" page, which should ideally be in a prominent position.

So where should we place Promissio in the rankings? Although I overall liked what I saw, and the articles in the first issue seem to be pretty solid, it initially goes at level 4, just because it is brand new, but as soon as it begins to be cited in scholarly literature (even if that is primarily Lutheran literature), I would probably bump it up to level 3. Hypothetically this could go up to level 2 if it turned into one of the main Lutheran journals and was noticed significantly by non-Lutherans. For that reason we might see Wisconsin Lutheran Quarterly eventually bumped up to level 2, even though the SBL handbook does not list it. Denominationally oriented journals can indeed go fairly high, which is why at the suggestion of somebody in the comments section of my original post I bumped up Andrews University Seminary Studies to level 2.

A New Resource to Bring German Scholarship to English-Speaking Students

I was surprised the other day to find an article in a journal abbreviated "AGNTS." I was not familiar with that acronym, and as a self-styled "expert" on journals in biblical studies (trying to write a book on the topic; no luck yet finding a publisher!), I was puzzled that I had not yet encountered this journal, nor could I for the life of me figure out what the abbreviation would stand for! ("Anglican Greek New Testament Studies"?? "The Articulate Gazette for New Testament Scholars"?? "Articles for the Glorification of Neo-orthodox Trinitarian Studies"??)

As it turns out, AGNTS stands for a journal entitled Accessible German New Testament Scholarship, a one-of-a-kind publication which promises to be a very helpful resource. It is accessible here.

Now, I took two semesters in German for my PhD (basic German, and then the brutally difficult theological German), both classes under a native speaker (and major Johannine scholar), Dr. Andreas J. Köstenberger, and I was most definitely not his best student (theological German had three results: "pass, fail, or do remedial work"; I got the third option). I have nonetheless tried to quote directly from German sources in my academic work (I'm rather proud of my original translation of Julius Streicher's disturbing perspective on the book of Esther, published in my article in JSOT in 2024). Also, because the Lord is awesome and has a sense of irony, I married a wonderful German woman from Hamburg who can now provide me with even further help on my academic research in German! Nonetheless, I welcome all the help I can get with interacting with German sources.

In a nutshell, this journal, edited by Wayne Coppins and Jacob N. Cerone (a fellow SEBTS grad) provides you with "a curated collection of significant contributions to New Testament scholarship from the German-speaking world" (from the introduction by the editors). This includes both past German scholars (e.g., Peter Stuhlmacher, who passed away just last year) and current German-speaking scholars (Christoph Heilig, University of Zurich), translated from German into English. This volume consists solely of previously published material, and so far all of it was translated by Wayne Coppins (kudos! That's a lot of work).

The article most relevant to my own research is Stuhlmacher's "The Tübingen Biblical Theology of the New Testament--A Retrospective," originally published in 2017 in Theologische Beiträge. Having just finished teaching New Testament Introduction, however, I also noted with interest William Wrede, "Letter to Adolf von Harnack on Jesus as Messiah and Paul as New Beginning."

Although not your "normal" academic journal, AGNTS promises to provide some valuable material for students of the New Testament, and I am greatly looking forward to future volumes.

Esther 6:13 and a "Biblical Theology" of the Bible's Least Appreciated Book

I am grateful that the latest issue of JETS contains my second article on the book of Esther:

Paul A. Himes, "A Touch of Wisdom: The Literary Role of Esther 6:13 in Bridging to a Biblical Theology of Scripture's Least 'Theological' Book," Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 68, no. 3 (2025): 495–507. 

Anybody wishing for a PDF copy may email me at phimes@gmail.com.

The paper originally received a split decision with an invitation to "revise-and-resubmit," but ironically a comment by the peer-reviewer who had not recommended publication spurred me on to what was almost a total rewrite (except for the first couple pages), which was then recommended for publication by the next two reviewers.

Here is the abstract: 

“The lack of constructive discussion in Old Testament theologies on the book of Esther is lamentable yet understandable, given its status as the only canonical book not to mention God. Those few scholars who discuss Esther theologically generally focus on the theme of hidden sovereignty or the virtues or vices of its characters, while a few also note the significance of the survival of the Jewish people. In support of that latter theme, this article proposes that the theological center of the book can be found in Esther 6:13b, a sentence that stands out both in its intense alliteration and in the odd relabeling of Haman’s “friends” as “wise men.” Esther 6:13 deliberately evokes echoes of sapiential material to put a theological spin on the story, namely, that those seeking to destroy the Jewish people will fall into the pit that they themselves have dug. This article focuses on how Esther 6:13 within its literary context can legitimately be said to fashion a biblical theology for the book with practical significance even today.”

Presenting at the national ETS meeting in Boston

(The buildings of Boston, just outside of South Station, around midnight on Nov. 17th/18th. Photo taken by Paul Himes)

This past month I was privileged to present at the national meeting of the Evangelical Theological Society in Boston. I am grateful for the invitation from my friend Dr. Tim Miller (the panel moderator) to present on "Pneumatology in the General Epistles," though I expanded on that to try to create a more wholistic Petrine pneumatology. My paper was entitled "The Rock, the Cornerstone, and the Empowering Spirit: Tracing Peter's Pneumatology through the Petrine Material of Scripture."

I received some excellent feedback on the paper, most significant being my need to incorporate 1 Pet 4:14 more thoroughly into my analysis and the need to think a bit more deeply about how sanctification fits in with Peter's pneumatology. At least one major scholar was in the audience, and she had some positive things to say, while also agreeing with a couple other people that I talk too fast 😀 (it's true, and my students can attest to that fact as well).

In addition, I was privileged to sit at the panel table with Dr. Herb Bateman, Dr. Adam Harwood, and Dr. Dana Harris, all of whom gave excellent presentations. This is kind of like a Triple-A ballplayer suddenly finding himself at a clinic with MLB Allstars, but I am grateful for the opportunity.

This was the first time in 10+ years I have actually attended a national ETS (thanks to my school, BCM, a very small college, for paying for the trip!), and the first time since 2010 (Atlanta: the Great Debate on the NPP and justification!) that I actually presented a paper (though I have presented at regional ETS meetings). Besides presenting, the highlights for me at ETS this year were hanging out with OT and Homiletics scholar Timothy Yap and his brother (which included trying out an overpriced but authentic and delicious Boston lobster fast-food joint), and listening to almost all of the "Paul within Judaism" panel presentations and discussions, featuring Paul Sloan, John W. Taylor, John Goodrich, and Justin Hardin.

Ranking Academic Journals: A Sample of what I hope the Final List Will Look Like

Some time ago I wrote "Peer-Reviewed Journals Pt 2: The Top 100+ Academic Journals for Biblical Studies," which has turned out to be my most popular post on this rather obscure blog that I publish, with 12,000+ hits and a significant number of comments. I am hoping to publish a book on academic journals in biblical and theological studies (I'm submitting proposals to publishers right now), a book which will cover everything from how peer-review works, predatory journals, "author-pays" journals, and journal articles as a "metric" evaluation (fairly or unfairly) for one's academic value. One chapter in the book will also offer a word of admonition to editors and peer-reviewers on behalf of all the would-be authors who have felt that they wasted their time with a particular journal or been treated unfairly. (With fourteen published academic journal articles and three more forthcoming, I have a lot of experience with the process. In addition to publishing, I have also peer-reviewed for a major evangelical journal).

In this book, I intend to include an intensely researched 4-tier listing of journals, significantly improved from the original posting. This is based on my firm belief that such online rankings as Scopus, while possessing value for ranking journals in "religion" in general, are almost worthless for ranking journals in the narrower fields of Christian biblical and theological studies (I discuss this in the book).

Here is an example of what I hope the final list will look like, using just the tier-1 journals. (The list will almost certainly change based on the surveys I intend to conduct. For the record, of my 17 journal articles only two of them are in this top-tier, so I feel that I am being objective. Also, I am open to feedback on these rankings, and those on the earlier post, but only from people that have actually published peer-reviewed material).

This is only the 1st tier out of 4 tiers.

 

Title and abbreviation	Years	Affiliation and/or   publisher	What sort of paper does it publish?	Misc.
Biblica (Bib)	1920–present	Pontifical Biblical Institute	Broad, biblical studies in general (including extra-canonical Christian literature)	Maximum of 55,000 characters; articles published in “English, French, German, Italian, and Spanish.” No author fees.
Bulletin of the American Society of Overseas Research (BASOR). Multiple previous titles.[1]	1919–present	ASOR; The University of Chicago Press	Ancient Near East archaeology, society, and languages	Maximum of 12,000 words.
Catholic Biblical Quarterly (CBQ)	1939–present	Catholic Biblical Association of America	Broad, biblical studies in general (including extra-canonical Christian literature)	Maximum of 10,000 words.
Dead Sea Discoveries (DSD)	1994–present	Brill	“. . . the study of the Dead Sea Scrolls and their cultural, historical, and archaeological contexts” (from website).	Only British or American English.
Ephemerides theologicae lovanienses (ETL)	1924–present	KU Leuven and Université catholique de Louvain	“all aspects of theology and canon law” (from website).	Publishes articles in English, French, and German.
Harvard Theological Review (HTR)	1908–present	Harvard Divinity School	“. . . the history and philosophy of religious thought in all traditions and periods, including Hebrew Bible, New Testament, Christianity, Jewish studies, theology, ethics, archaeology, and comparative religious studies” (from website).	12,000 words is the upper limit (with some exceptions). Note that I am open to debate as to whether or not HTR belongs in tier-1, especially after the whole “Gospel of Jesus’ Wife” issue.
The Jewish Quarterly Review (JQR)	1889–present	University of Pennsylvania Press	Jewish studies, but broad, including biblical, theological, philosophical, and cultural matters.	12,000 word limit.
Journal for the Study of the New Testament (JSNT)	1978–present	Sage Journals	New Testament studies, but broad.	Generally prefers 5,000–10,000 words.
Journal for the Study of the Old Testament (JSOT)	1976–present	Sage Journals	Old Testament studies, but broad.	Generally prefers 5,000–10,000 words.
Journal of Biblical Literature (JBL), formerly known as the Journal of the Society of Biblical Literature and Exegesis.	1881–present, with a hiatus of 1 year (current title 1890–present)	Society of Biblical Literature	Very broad, anything connected to Old and New Testament studies, as well as discussions of the nature of modern biblical scholarship itself.	Quarterly. Upper limit of 10,000 words, including footnotes.
Journal of Early Christian Studies (JECS), formerly known as The Second Century (SecCent).	1981–present (current title 1993–present)	North American Patristics Society; John Hopkins University Press	Church History, from C.E. 100–700.	Upper limit of 12,500 words (with endnotes). Adamantly declares that it does not charge author fees, and warns against websites claiming to represent Hopkins Press that charge a fee.
Journal of Northwest Semitic Languages (JNSL)	1971–present	Stellenbosch University	Publishes “linguistic, translational, literary, text-critical, historical, religious and cultural issues related to Ancient Near Eastern texts and societies, as well as articles addressing theoretical issues underlying these fields” (from the website). Elsewhere clarifies that ANE “includes Nubian, Coptic and Ethiopian studies.”	Bi-annual. 6,000 words is considered the approximate maximum amount.
Journal of Religious Ethics (JRE)	1973–present	Wiley Online Library	Not limited to Christianity and Judaism; includes discussions on a variety of ethical issues including climate change and AI. Also includes “historical studies of influential figures and texts” (from the website).	Prefers between 8,000–10,000 words, though willing to consider longer articles in special cases.
Journal of the American Oriental Society (JAOS)	1843–present	American Society for Premodern Asia (formerly the American Oriental Society)	Very broad, including studies on the culture, history, and religion of the Ancient Near East, Islamic Near East, South Asia, Southeastern Asia, and Eastern Asia.	“Preferably not exceeding 15,000 words, including footnotes . . .” The author retains the copyright for their journal article.
Journal of Theological Studies (JTS)	1899–present	Oxford Academic	Very broad, “the entire range of theological research, scholarship and interpretation” (from the website). Covers New Testament, Hebrew Scriptures, Church history, textual criticism, etc.	Biannual. “The length of articles in the Journal ranges from less than 1,000 to over 30,000 words” (from the website).
Maarav: A Journal for the Study of the Northwest Semitic Languages and Literatures (Maarav)	1978–present	University of Chicago Press	The journal “is devoted to the texts and verbal objects of the ancient Levant featuring Aramaic, Hebrew, Phoenician, and related languages” (from the website).	Biannual.
Mission Studies (MIST)	1984–present	Brill; International Association for Mission Studies	The journal intends to be “a forum for the scholarly study of Christian witness and its impact in the world, and the related field of intercultural theology, from international, interconfessional and interdisciplinary perspectives.”	Triannual. Prefers articles about 6,000 words long, but with some “reasonable leeway,” including footnotes, etc., but not including “Tables and Figures” (from the website).
New Testament Studies (NTS)	1955–present	Cambridge University Press; Studiorum Novi Testamenti Societas	Broad, anything related to New Testament studies and early church history.	Quarterly. Will publish articles in English, German, and French. Limit of 8,500 words, including footnotes.
Novum Testamentum (NovT)	1957–present.	Brill	Broad, anything related to New Testament studies and early church history.	Quarterly. Will publish articles in English, German, and French. Limit of 8,500 words, including footnotes.
Old Testament Essays (OTE)	1987–present	Old Testament Society of South Africa	Broad, anything related to the Old Testament, both Hebrew and Greek.	Triannual. Word limit of 7,000–10,000 words, including footnotes, etc.  Publishes in English,,  German. Requires that authors pay a fee of 400 Rand per page (equivalent, as of 9/10/2025, to $22.89 per page), if accepted for publication.
Philosophy	1926–present	Cambridge University Press; Royal Institute of Philosophy	Broad, anything related to modern and ancient philosophy, including overlapping concerns from language, religion, medicine, etc.	Quarterly Upper limit of 10,000 words.
Revue biblique (RB), two other former names[2]	1892–present (current name from 1946)	L’École Biblique et Archéologique Française de Jérusalem	Very broad, virtually all matters relating to biblical studies, including Old Testament, New Testament, ANE archaeology, and church history.	Quarterly. Publishes articles in French, English, German, Italian, and Spanish.
Scottish Journal of Theology (SJT)	1948–present	Cambridge University Press	Covers “systematic, historical, and biblical theology” (from the website).	Quarterly. Prefers articles of 5,000–6,000, with 8,000 words as the upper limit.
Theologische Zeitschrift (TZ)	1945–present	University of Basel	The focus of this journal is on theology, but also how various “subfields of theology” can enter “into an interdisciplinary conversation” with other subfields, including subfields from non-theological disciplines.	Quarterly.  Publishes articles in German, French, and English. Maximum of 60,000 characters (this would probably come out to a maximum of 10,000 words).
Vetus Testamentum (VT)	1951–present	Brill; International Organization for the Study of the Old Testament	Broad, everything related to Old Testament studies.	Quarterly. Publishers in English, French, and German. Prefers articles less than 8,000 words, as well as “short notes” (2,000–3,000 words).
Vigiliae christianae (VC)	1947–present	Brill	Publishers material “of an historical, cultural, linguistic or philological nature on early Christian literature written after the New Testament, as well as on Christian epigraphy and archaeology” (from the website).	Five issues per year. Publishes articles in English, French, and German.
Zeitschrift für alttestamentliche Wissenschaft (ZAW)	1881–present	De Gruyter Brill	Broad, anything connected to the Old Testament and early Judaism.	Upper limit of 38,000 characters, including footnotes and spaces. Quarterly. Publishes articles in English, French, and German.
Zeitschrift für die neutestamentliche Wissenschaft (ZNW)	1900–present	De Gruyter Brill	Broad, anything connected to the New Testament.	Biannual. Publishers articles in English and German.

---

[1] Initially Bulletin of the American School of Oriental Research in Jerusalem, then Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research (1922). Current title from 2022 onward.

[2] Began as Revue Biblique in 1892, switched to Vivre et Penser in 1941, then returned to Revue Biblique in 1946.

Sometimes academic articles have practical spiritual value

Even as a professor at a relatively small Bible college, I acknowledge that I still live in the "Ivory Tower," so to speak. The majority of material I try to write and publish is not likely to impact the average Joe or average Josephine, at least not directly, though perhaps as a cure for insomnia. This feature of my writing is shared by the vast majority of academics. Conversely, many of the practically-minded material that is published and tries to pass itself off as academic is lacking scholarly substance (i.e., evidence of critical thinking and thorough research) and thus falls short of its potential.

Having said that, occasionally a rigorously researched piece of academia is published that actually has the potential for direct spiritual benefit. In other words, it could make a difference in your life or the life of somebody you are counseling. Let me share with you two recent examples.

First, Greg Palys, "Cut Off Your Hand, Save Your Soul: How the Outer Self Affects the Inner Self in the Fight against Lust," Themelios 50, no. 1 (April 2025):142–157 (click here for the article). Palys' article consists of a rigorous study of Matthew 5:27-30. Concluding that the command to remove one's eye or hand should be taken as "literal" yet "hypothetical," Palys notes that Jesus wants us to consider everything in our lives that causes us to lust and to eliminate it. We should be willing to part with anything, "even our physical members" if that is what is necessary. As Palys emphasizes, the external impacts the internal: "Jesus assumes that our lust itself will diminish if we obey him by removing touchpoints with lust." Practically, "Sanctification looks like repenting of lust, bathing in Scripture, and applying an internet filter."

Second, Brian R. Hand, "Feeling the Fall: A Biblical-Theological Examination of Melancholy as an Emotional Mirror of a Fallen World," Journal of Biblical Theology and Worldview 4, no. 1 (2023): 1–29 (click here for the article). Hand begins with a discussion of melancholy, depression, and related ideas, including the difficulty of defining it both here and as observed in the text of Scripture. He uses Psalm 88 as a biblical starting point, and then provides an extensive list of scriptural passages that "intersect" with the 5th edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorder, though also noting that lumping all such texts together into a classification of "depression" is overly simplistic. From there, Hand goes on to develop a theological discussion of how melancholia relates to the Fall and then a biblical-theology survey of "Select Texts Correlating Sorrow to the Fall." In the final section, Hand discusses application, specifically with the biblical counselor in mind.

Many other examples exist, of course, and occasionally even the most obtuse academic journal article can contain material of value that eventually impacts a preacher or layperson's understanding of Scripture. Nonetheless, Palys' and Hand's articles are excellent examples of how rigorous academic writing and practical, spiritual application need not be at cross purposes.

Introducing the "Studies in Judeo-Christian Thought" Monographs Series

 I am excited to announce that the first volume in the brand-new Studies in Judeo-Christian Thought Monograph Series (SJCTMS) has now been published. That volume, by Brent A. Belford, is entitled Analyzing Pauline Literary Techniques, Hermeneutics, and Theology in Composite Quotations. The topic of "composite" (i.e., "fused") quotations is not something that has been studied that often in the scholarly literature. Having read Dr. Belford's book I can testify that he makes a solid contribution to this topic and Pauline scholarship in general.

The SCTMS is published by Southern California Seminary Press (click here), and seeks to "provide a rigorous, peer-reviewed publishing platform for scholarly projects that align with the mission of SCS Press," specifically those from a "biblical-fundamentalist or conservative-evangelical framework."

I have the privilege of being on the board of reviewers (along with such "all-stars" of conservative evangelical scholarship as Andreas J. Köstenberger, John K. Goodrich, and Michael Grisanti), and I was privileged to be a peer-reviewer for one of the first volumes.

For those with a legitimate doctoral degree who wish to see their dissertation published, but feel that some elements of it (e.g., rejecting the documentary hypothesis of the pentateuch or accepting Pauline authorship of the pastoral epistles) might not be looked kindly upon by some publishers, I would strongly recommend looking into the SCJTMS. The series is dedicated to simultaneously upholding the supreme authority of God's Word and rigorous scholarship and peer-review.

Our Plagiarism Exam at BCM

Plagiarism at a minimum exposes a certain degree of sloppiness in a student and at worst reveals a serious character flaw that needs to be dealt, that of stealing ideas and/or the artistic arrangement of words from an author and claiming it as their own. Nobody is immune to the potential of committing plagiarism, of course, whether accidental or deliberate. Nonetheless, I firmly believe that the fostering of key habits in a student's research and writing, not to mention a mindset that cares about what's at stake, can help minimize the risk.

Here at Baptist College of Ministry I have the privilege of teaming up with a colleague to address all the students in the college on the matter of plagiarism. We host an hour long session on the topic, and then we make every student take a test (designed by me) where the main goal is the ability to distinguish between plagiarized work and acceptable work, especially correct vs. incorrect paraphrase.

The test must be passed perfectly, though it can be retaken multiple times (probably about 35% pass it perfectly on the first try). After failing to pass the test the second time, each student must meet with a faculty member to go over the test and discuss each question, after which they will take it again. Some students require more "hands-on" coaching, and that's fine; the point is that everybody understands enough to pass it perfectly in the end.

All answers are multiple choice. Thanks to Populi, the answers to the questions are randomized, so nobody can simply memorize the order of the questions and keep trying until they get it right via brute force. The first four questions of the test are basic, common-sense questions about the nature of plagiarism and how we handle citation here at BCM (e.g., we use footnotes, not endnotes).

For the next three questions, we make the students study an article from the Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society and, focusing on specific paragraphs of material, distinguish between good citations of that article and plagiarism of that article. The two, well-written articles we utilize are: Timothy T. Larsen, "Literacy and Biblical Knowledge: The Victorian Age and Our Own," JETS 52, no. 3 (2009): 519–535, or Kirk R. MacGregor, "Biblical Inerrancy, Church Discipline, and the Mennonite-Amish Split," JETS 60, no. 3 (2017): 581–593 (we alternate between the two, depending on the year). I chose these two articles for the exam because, (a.) they are interesting, and (b.) they are not technical (i.e., requiring knowledge of technical terms, etc.). The questions then consist of examples of good citation using those articles vs. poor citation using those articles (i.e., a hypothetical writer who plagiarizes Larsen or MacGregor, either not citing them or citing a sentence or series of key words without putting the sentence or phrase in quotation marks)

The test is "open book" in the sense that they are encouraged to have a digital or physical copy of the article open, including a physical copy that has been highlighted or marked up. They may also have scrap paper with their notes from the previous failed exam, etc. It is impossible to cheat on this exam (unless you are looking at somebody else taking it) because, again, the answers are randomized.

Each student will probably take the exam twice in their college career (and all seminary students take it once). This does not, of course, totally vanquish plagiarism unto the nether world of academic dishonesty where it belongs, but at a minimum it reinforces to the students that plagiarism is (a.) undesirable and (b.) can be avoided if you use your brain.

Archive.org and Theological Research

I confess that I am not the brightest bulb in the chandelier, so to speak, when it comes to keeping up with matters of digital copyright and litigation. I know, however, that in the past I have benefitted from archive.org and its system whereby patrons could "check out" a book digitally for a period of time, just like a regular library.

Apparently, with the conclusion of "Hachette v. Internet Archive," much of what you could do before on archive.org is no longer possible (for a brief discussion of the case, sympathetic to the Internet Archive, click here). I, personally, recognize my lack of experience and knowledge in the legality of such matters and so will not offer an opinion. Still, I miss what I used to be able to do on archive.org, and I will offer this point of support in favor of The Internet Archive: my ability to borrow a book from archive.org directly led to my having our BCM school library purchasing it (i.e., as a physical copy) for our own stacks, in your role as unofficial director of library acquisition (in other words, my ability to borrow a book on archive.org actually may have made the publisher money, rather than costing it money). 

However, when it comes to sources in the public domain, including sources hundreds of years old in various languages (including Latin), my dear readers should be aware that the Internet Archive has some invaluable material, including, for example, the first edition (1516) of Eramsus' Textus Receptus (click here). In other words, for research purposes, the Internet Archive can supply you with some extremely rare, older sources that otherwise you would have to fly to Europe to consult, assuming you could gain access to them. While we may never again appreciate the potential of archive.org as a true digital library, we can still utilize it as a compendium of older, rare texts all scanned and waiting to be studied.