Eric Foster-Whiddon

LST, 09 July: "Recognition, Beauty, Travel, and Love: How the Ancient Novel Informs a Reading of the Fourth Gospel"

If you want details about joining in person or online, hit me up! (3/3)

Aberdeen, 03 July: “What Happens when Jesus Crosses Boundaries? Reading John 4 through the Lens of Cognitive Narratology"

StA, 07 July: “Boundary-Crossing, θεωρία, and the Rhetorical Utility of Narrative Travel in Life of Apollonius of Tyana and the Gospel of John,” (2/3)

Heading back to the UK soon for graduation and a few research presentations. Many thanks to London School of Theology and the Schools of Divinity at University of St Andrews and University of Aberdeen for having me.

Paper titles below… (1/3)

Yes! I grew up UMC in south GA too. Been to Camp Tygart?

Happy and humbled to report that my doctoral thesis will be published in the Biblical Interpretation series. Fingers crossed that “John as Divine Romance: Reading the Fourth Gospel with the Ancient Novel” makes an appearance at SBL 2025! @degruyterbrill.bsky.social @dgb-relbibtheo.bsky.social

Blessings as you drive toward the prorev. You got this!

From my current understanding, I’m not sure if I’d say it “is” a mug… maybe it bears family resemblance to things usually identified as being “mug,” or maybe it participates in “mugness” while also bearing the traits of “cupness” and “bowlness” to varying degrees. Maybe even “pencilholderness.” 🤷🏻‍♂️

Man, I love that reference! #intertextuality 🕷️😂 (I’ll have to look back, but I either put the Spider-Man/Eco illustration in a footnote of my thesis or flagged it to go in the published version… I forget 🤷🏻‍♂️)

Looking forward to this, both the tea and the read! ☕️📖 @andyjudd.bsky.social

I felt the same way about library purchases… morally obligated (especially to future PGRs) to expand the holdings on my topic. Maybe I just enjoyed the ability to buy expensive academic books on the Uni’s dime. 😁

Destroy the myth that libraries are no longer relevant. If you use your library, please share. Picture of library aisle filled with books.

@goodwilllibrarian.bsky.social

A version of the kermit vs darth kermit meme where good kermit tells the online academic that they should grade, while darth kermit tells them they should eat more pie.

Every academic right now

I’ve been looking forward to it since way before it came out 👍

I’m not even there and this prompted me to have a colleague pick it up in person (instead of buying online) so I could drink my coffee out of a mug that knows the contributions of modern genre theory to reading biblical literature well ☕️📖🤓

How I love ending feedback on exegetical papers with “You should be proud of this.”

Unfortunately, I’m always on the lookout for AI. It’s part of the job description these days, right? There are several things that make me confident that’s not the case in this instance, which makes it even better :)

Real-time reactions from grading papers… a freshman in my 100-level Intro to NT class (who is not a Bible & Theology major) references Stendhal and discusses the Damascus road Christophany as Paul’s prophetic call (contra conversion) and I AM SO HAPPY! Huzzah! She found this via her own research!

#Genius! That’s a plan for Boston next year… I’m sure my friends would be happy to do some extra grading 🤣

Instead of listening to papers at #SBLAAR24, I’m grading a stack of papers… most of which are the first attempts of undergrads at doing a baby exegesis assignment. It’s actually encouraging; lots have made good effort and are showing progress!

Bible nerds… what NT (or other BibStudies-related) books are you excited about this year that should be on my radar? I’m missing #SBLAAR24 but plan to assuage the FOMO by taking advantage of publishers’ online discount codes.

📌

Yup. Thankful, however, for SBL/AAR discounts on publishers’ websites. 📚

I was looking over your website earlier, very interested in learning more about this.

Saw it and added it to my feeds list 👍 Yes, please include me.

Yes please

Really looking forward to reading your book!

Anybody made a BibStudies starter pack yet?

An unexpected benefit of the PhD journey is the secondhand elation I feel when a friend passes a viva or lands an academic job. It’s a nice counter-balance in a space that can be so anxiety ridden.

~1400 words today, thinking about the Odyssey, Callirhoe, and the Gospel of John. It’s slow, tedious, fun work.

~500 words yesterday, ~1100 today. Feels good to see months of research shape up into an argument on a page. It’s been unusually hard to get into a writing headspace for this chapter.