I'm doing fine!

An explanation of my last blog post is required, as some have worried that my doctorate is not going well. Nothing could be further from the truth, so please, so worries! I said I was exhausted, but being exhausted isn't necessarily a bad thing ... it just means I've been very busy over the past few months. I mentioned that my doctorate was "sucking out my energy," but that is not because I'm not making any progress but because the subject matter is huge and its demanding me to think in a number of fields in which I have little experience. I recently discussed my overall thesis (which I do have) with my supervisor and have received very positive feedback. So, a lack of blogging due to being überfordert is not a sign that things aren't working out in life in Bonn. Rather the opposite, it means that things are demanding and I have to set priorities.

Here's the kind of thing I'm trying to achieve in the second half of my thesis (the first being about Childs' "canonical approach"):

I'm wanting to get to the "substance" of Psalm 24, which for me means reading it not only in the context of the canon, but also in the context of Christian theology in general. As such, I'm looking at its diachronic development, its poetics, the final form, its position within the structure of the Psalter, its relation to the theology of the Psalter, is relation to the rest of OT, possible connections with the NT, its history of interpretation, and finally, its position within the context of dogmatic theology. I should add that I already have an overarching thesis, one which tries to uncover something of the "ontological unity" behind this mass of material.

If that sounds like a lot, then it explains (amongst other things), why I'm a tad exhausted. Trying to be actively involved in my church also robs me of blogging time and energy. I do intend, however, to keep letting the odd post through.

This blog is not dead

... it's just resting a bit. The various obligations of life here in Bonn and the strains of a thesis that is sucking out most of my energy have left me somewhat überfordert (I love that word; I wish there was an adequate English translation).

But worry not - when the muse takes me (and carries me) I will put fingertip to keyboard and rattle out something profound, moving, or simply confused.

A great German-English translation resource

Seeing that German is the sacred language of Biblical studies, I thought I'd alert people to a great translation resource, linguee.de (http://www.linguee.de/). It's particularly useful for translating German into English or vice-versa. In contrast to the excellent online dictionary LEO (http://dict.leo.org/ende?lang=de&lp=ende), you can type in entire phrases (in inverted "commas") and the whole web is searched for examples of the various ways this phrase is translated. I find in invaluable.