I don't blog Sundays

There are a couple of helpful responses to my latest post A canonical approach to the twelve Minor Prophets, once again affirming the academic merit of blogging. I don't know what it is like doing a PhD on campus with an available bunch of doctoral colleagues, but blogging puts you in touch with great brains around the globe.

The relevance that this has to the title of my post is that I won't be responding till Monday. I've decided that taking a breat from lap top at least one day a week is incredibly healthy, so I don't even switch the thing on in order to resist the temptation of getting lost in reams of RSS feeds. So thanks guys - I'll get back to you (and for the others, feel free to join the conversation!).

I should add that I am currently making a (rather challenging) transition in my doctoral studies. Having soaked up Brevard Childs and the scholars that have influenced him over the past two and a half years, I'm now trying to actually do some of my own exegesis (i.e. Psalm 24). This involves making a major switch in consciousness - no longer do I have to trade in broad sweeping concepts such as "the text as witness" or "the dialectic between text and res." Rather, I have to look at multiple textual variants, poetic structures, redactional schemes and historical context. The amount of intricate knowledge needed to do this is really quite extraordinary; I have full respect for bloggers such as John Hobbins , Douglas Mangum or John Anderson who have seemingly mastered the material and can effortlessly summarize entire universes of information in the sweep of a single post. I've updated my RSS feeds lately in order to try and immerse myself in this "alternate reality" (I've been reading far more dogmatics than Old Testament). I look forward to participating in these lively and edifying conversations.