J. David Stark

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Happy New Year

This week, I’m out of the office and celebrating the new year. If you’ll also be celebrating, I hope you’re able to enjoy spending time with those who matter most to you.

Even if the holiday has snuck up on you, I hope you’ll take the opportunity to reflect on the past year and consider how you can make the most of the one to come.

If you haven’t done so yet, please take just a couple minutes to

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Merry Christmas

This week, I’m out of the office and celebrating Christmas. If you’ll also be celebrating, I hope you’re able to enjoy getting together with those who matter most to you and to join with “the few among the Niatirbians” in reflecting on the elements of truly lasting value in the season.

Even if the holiday has snuck up on you, be sure to carve out some time to say “yes” to what’s most important.…

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2018 Reader Survey

Thank you so much for your interest and engagement this year. It’s been wonderful, and I’m very much looking forward to continuing the conversation next year.

To help me understand a bit better who you are, would you mind taking just a few moments to complete the survey below?

Submissions are anonymous unless you choose to identify yourself in your answer to one of the free-form questions. I’m…

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Citing Grammars with the SBL Handbook and Zotero

Citing Grammars with the SBL Handbook and @Zotero @sblpress @bmwiernik #writing

You might think that citing a grammar according to the SBL Handbook of Style would be pretty straightforward. And you’d be right, but there are several special cases to account for.

Page 1 of Herbert Smyth’s “Greek Grammar,” scan courtesy of Textkit 1. Cite section numbers wherever possible.

Instead of citing a grammar by page number, you should cite by section number wherever possibleto give the…

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Change Word Styles to Direct Formatting in 10 Steps

Change Word Styles to Direct Formatting in 10 Steps @sblpress #writing

One of the best ways to ensure consistent formatting in a Word document is to use styles. But, you might also need to be able to turn these styles into “direct” formatting.

Work space by NordWood Themes

If you apply a style to text, the text will be formatted as the style specifies (e.g., a first-level heading, a block quotation). This helps keep things consistent and avoid forgetting something…

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A Conversation about Essentials

A Conversation about Essentials @michaelhyatt @MicheleCushatt @GregoryMcKeown

In this interview, Michele Cushatt, Michael Hyatt, and Greg McKeown discuss “essentialism,” or “the disciplined pursuit of less but better.”

For more thoughts from Greg along these lines, take a look at his book Essentialism. For me, two points stand out in this discussion that aren’t brought out or aren’t brought out as clearly in…

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Happy Thanksgiving

This week, I’m out of the office and celebrating Thanksgiving. If you’ll also be celebrating, I hope you’re able to enjoy some time with those who matter most to you. If the holiday has snuck up on you, there’s still time to prepare to unplug and make the most of it.

Tune back in next week to continue the discussion about life in biblical studies.

Thankful photo by Pro Church Media

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Reflections on a Babybatical, Part 2: Strategies for Unplugging (without Actually Taking a Semester Off)

Reflections on a Babybatical, Part 2: Strategies for Unplugging (without Actually Taking a Semester Off)

In our last post, we explored four strategies for unplugging without actually taking a semester off. Picking up where we left off, here are four more.

Family together by Jehu Christan 5. Identify partners and colleagues who may need something from you during the time you’re planning to be away.

You don’t need to inform the world, but you might want to cast the net a bit wider than you think you…

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Reflections on a Babybatical, Part 1: Strategies for Unplugging (without Actually Taking a Semester Off)

Reflections on a Babybatical, Part 1: Strategies for Unplugging (without Actually Taking a Semester Off)

We recently welcomed our second child, and after she was born I spent some substantive time out of the office.

Whether you’re headed for a similarly significant life event or you’re just moving through the regular cycle of the academic year toward a natural break time, here are some suggestions for planning ahead and making the most of your time away from the regular flow of academic life.

Thaila…

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4 Steps to Using IATG with the SBL Handbook of Style

4 Steps to Using IATG with the SBL Handbook of Style @sblpress @degruyter_TRS #writing

In the second edition of the SBL Handbook of Style (SBLHS2), chapter 8 is entirely dedicated to abbreviations. According to the Handbook, “abbreviations for works not listed below should follow Siegfried M. Schwertner, Internationales Abkürzungsverzeichnis für Theologie und Grenzgebiete, 3rd ed. (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2014 [=IATG3]).” Here are four steps to make this process as seamless as possible.

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7 Reasons I Moved to DreamHost

7 Reasons I Moved to @DreamHost

It can be difficult to select a website host among myriad of available options. I’ve recently moved to DreamHost. Here are a few reasons why.

DreamHost Logo Why I Moved to DreamHost

DreamHost is one of the hosting services that WordPress.org itself recommends. My previous host—which shall remain nameless—consistently had issues. The server rarely went down, so their uptime guarantee was technical…

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Jewish Scripture as Christian Scripture at the 2019 Stone-Campbell Journal Conference

Jewish Scripture as Christian Scripture at the Stone-Campbell Journal Conference

The Jewish Scripture as Christian Scripture (JSACS) study group is pleased to welcome proposals for papers for the Stone-Campbell Journal Conference.

The conference is set to be hosted by Johnson University in Knoxville, TN, on 5–6 April 2019. Conference details are available on the Stone-Campbell Journal website.

The group’s interest is intentionally broader than the issue of “the use of the Old…

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The Fusion of Rhetoric and Hermeneutics

At first glance, rhetoric and hermeneutics are quite different things. Rhetoric deals with argument and persuasion, hermeneutics with examination and understanding. But, if we look more closely, they comingle in a way that makes them inseparable.

Original abstract painting by Vanessa Ives

To begin, both rhetorical and hermeneutical reflection take the form of considering existing practice (21).1A…

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3 Ways to Increase Your Zotero Cloud Storage

3 Ways to Increase Your @Zotero Cloud Storage #writing

The Zotero “personal research assistant” now comes with 300 MB of cloud storage free for attachments in each account. This is a good amount, but it can go quickly, especially if you start storing larger PDFs in your Zotero library.

Yellow Photo by Darwin Vegher

For instance, the Bavarian State Library has made available PDF scans of Gabriel Vasquez’s entire 4-volume Commentariorum ac…

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Gabriel Vasquez on Thomas Aquinas

Gabriel Vasquez on Thomas Aquinas @bsb_muenchen @google

Gabriel Vasquez (also Gabriele Vázquez) was a Spanish Jesuit theologian from the late 16th and early 17th centuries (BnF; Antonio Goyena, “Gabriel Vasquez” CE). In his time, Vasquez was known for a strong familiarity with different authors and schools of thought, and Benedict XIV praised him as a “luminary of theology” (Goyena, “Gabriel Vasquez” CE).

Image of a portrait of Gabriel Vasquez by…

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Citing Electronic Journals with Individually Paginated Articles

Citing Electronic Journals with Individual Articles @sblpress @zotero

There are several good online journals that publish articles that are paginated separately from each other, rather than running the pagination continuously through a given issue (or volume). Just a few are the Journal of Greco-Roman Christianity and Judaism, HTS Teologiese Studies, and Scriptura (at least in recent volumes).

Typewriter by Pereanu Sebastian

I’ve tended to treat these as though…

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