My copy arrived the other day, thanks!

Always wanted my work to be described as “startling” and “unforgettable.”

Really pleased that I was invited to contribute to this excellent volume.

Very cool. Thanks for sharing.

📣 Spotlight on Paul, chaired by Andy Boakye and Ryan Collman

For 2026, the Paul seminar will host three sessions: Paul within Paganism: Restoring the Mediterranean Context to the Apostle; Divine Christology in Paul’s letters; an open session.

Happy Easter, y’all.

Bush: Tiny Desk Concert YouTube video by NPR Music

youtu.be/lBuHH7WE4yE

Thanks, Matthijs! I’ll send you an email in a minute.

Looks great! Would love to have a copy.

Matthijs den Dulk holds up a copy of his new book in his office

Ethnic Stereotypes and the Letters of Paul is now available in hardback + paperback and I happen to have some spare copies.

***Repost if you’re interested and by March 31 I’ll randomly select a few people who will get a free copy in the mail.***

Book info here: www.cambridge.org/core/books/e...

For 2026, the Paul seminar will host three sessions. Paul within Paganism: Restoring the Mediterranean Context to the Apostle This session will focus on the recent volume Paul within Paganism: Restoring the Mediterranean Context to the Apostle (Fortress, 2025), edited by Alexander Chantziantoniou, Paula Fredriksen, and Stephen L. Young. We invite papers that engage this volume directly, whether by engaging its methodological proposals, critically responding to its arguments, or interacting substantively with individual essays. Divine Christology in Paul’s letters This session will extend the Paul within Paganism conversation by examining questions of divine Christology in Paul’s letters. We seek papers that situate Pauline Christology within the broad landscape of ancient Mediterranean religion and that address related issues such as monotheism and monolatry, divine identity, cultic practice, and cosmology. Open Session The final session is open to any proposals that engage with the study of Paul.

Quick reminder to get your @bntsoc.bsky.social paper proposals in! For this year, the Paul seminar is hosting 3 sessions: Paul within Paganism, Divine Christology in Paul’s letters, and an open session. See the image for details.

Just finished this episode about an hour ago. Definitely need another season.

The cover for the T&T Clark handbook of sexualities in the bile and its reception. It has an open pomegranate on it.

An image of the first page of my chapter in the volume: the ideal penis in the Bible and its reception. Here is the first paragraph: INTRODUCTION "I was in the pool! I was in the pool!" So goes the famous line from Seinfeld as George Costanza is grected with laughter by a woman who walks in on him changing. In his mind, the present size of his penis fails to meet up to its typical ideal state due to his body's physiological response to the cold water - what he and Jerry refer to as 'shrinkage'. For George, presenting as though he does not possess the ideal penis speaks negatively to his masculinity, virility and ability to satisfy a woman sexually: While modern discussions about the ideal penis often revolve around size (Gül et al. 2023) - both length and girth - what constitutes the ideal penis shifts over time and from culture to culture. For this present chapter, 1 examine the construction of the ideal penis in the Bible and its reception, with specific attention being given to how circumcision and foreskin are factored into conceptualizing the ideal penis. The main questions this chapter seeks to explore are as follows: how is the ideal penis constructed? Is it circumcised or does it have a foreskin? What wider values and ideas do these constructions convey?

My contributor copy arrived the other day. This was a fun chapter to write. I wish I could have made it longer, but the word-limit led to some textual shrinkage.

@tandtclark.bsky.social

An image of a bottle of fruit punch all sport, the greatest sports beverage of the 90s.

The things I would do for a Fruit Punch All Sport right about now…

#bodyquencher

Contemplating a giveaway if people are interested.

A picture of a book: Paul within Paganism

Contributor copies arrived just in time for me to miss SBL

All welcome to join our panel discussion of this significant scholarly book about Paul's theology of divine desire! I'll be reflecting on Christ's heartset against rape culture and other abuses of power, with implications for the academy and the church www.catholicbiblical.org/meetings/ubr...

Not sure if I’d call my work ‘serious’ but I’ll take it.

A screenshot of the proofs for my forthcoming chapter called ‘the ideal penis in the Bible and its reception’

Proofs.

Cool. I’ll give it a try. Thanks.

The .bib data is coming from a BetterBibTex file generated by Zotero.

I use betterbibtex already. The only thing Obsidian does it run the markdown file with citekeys through Pandoc (I think).

Do you have any tips on how I do this? I’m capable with tech, but not a coder.

The issue in the images is with the latest SBLHS2 file updated earlier this month. I was using an older version from 2022 (I think) and that isn’t working either, albeit nothing is being shortened or replaced by the collection-title-short modifier (so a slightly different issue).

I have no idea what it is doing. The only solution I have right now is to just replace the "series" name with the short form and delete the "collection-title-short" variable in the "extras" field. I guess that will work for now since most publishers/formats use the abbreviations anyway.

This is how it looks in Zotero. Note the extras field.

This is how it looks in the Zotero preview. Note that it has the BZNW abbreviation.

This is how it is showing up in a Pandoc generated bibliography.

This is how it is showing up in a footnote via a Pandoc generated word file (from a markdown file in Obsidian, using the obsidian pandoc plugin).

Any pandoc and zotero wizards out there? I'm not sure when this changed as I haven't exported any writing with pandoc in a while, but now my "collection-title-short" entries in Zotero aren't properly rendering in Pandoc with the SBLHS2 csl file from Zotero. #SBL
Check alt-text on pics for details.

A picture of a pint of beer at Bundobust brewery. Brewing equipment is in the background.

First beer of #BNTS2025

A bottle of irn Bru on a table on a train.

Off to #BNTS2025 and channeling my inner @profpaulmiddleton.bsky.social.

My hand holding a bottle of Jever in a green, sunny garden

First Jever of garden-beer season.

Had this discussion with a student the other day. It's such a slippery term.

Just stumbled upon two recent reviews of my book. One by Zachary McNeal in Religious Studies Review and one by Haley Gabrielle in Body and Religion:

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

journal.equinoxpub.com/BAR/article/...