Peter Malik

One of the things I truly dislike about textual editing is the writer’s block that ensues after months of drowning in raw data. Every. Single. Time.

I'm loving the new macOS Tahoe. Such a sleek, intuitive interface. For some reason, it brings back some memories of my earliest Macs! Anyone else who's digging it?

It'd be pretty nice to work on a piece that's shorter than 15,000 words for a change. Ah yes, that would be the article I'm supposed to be co-authoring, which I have no time to write because I'm working on all these impossibly long manuscripts!

Over the years, reading fiction has proved to be one of the key ways of preserving the remnants of this academic's mental health. Always have a novel at hand throughout the term time, but tend to ramp it up during holidays. Any tips—esp. more recent, lesser known authors/books I should check out?

After 9 years of work on this maddeningly fascinating manuscript, I'm happy to say that the end is in sight!

In due course, I will also add the extensive GJohn portion (already edited) and bring all of the previously published materials together into a single volume, furnished with a lot of imaging data and an integrative introduction.

Happy to report that the ZNW has accepted my new edition of GMatt pages in Codex Climaci Rescriptus for publication! This is the fourth and most likely also the last instalment of my editorial work on this manuscript to be published as an article.

Spent most of the afternoon trying to ascertain lettering in two lines. Not finished yet. #PalimpsestEditing #WhyWouldYouEraseItMate

For some reason, every time I edit a palimpsest section, I leave the most difficult page for the end. Then I spend 500% more time on it than I did on any of the previous ones. The upside is that the end is, finally, in sight.

Brilliant, thanks! It’s been just over 3 months for me, not sure if that’s a good sign or otherwise. (Previous experience was roughly 3 months.)

Anyone who has a recent experience with ZNW’s submission-to-decision process? How long did it take them to get back to you?

It took me 8 years to figure out a pressing problem in the section-numbering sequence on page of this darn palimpsest, but I did it! #HappyFriday

What’s your analysis of the current situation in Egypt?

Your observations are spot on.

Is it just me or this place feels rather dead? I miss the goo old Twitter days. Incredible what the high technocrat did to what used to be a very congenial and useful social medium. #Nostalgic

Spending some four hours on revising punctuation in my transcription of a single MS page... At times, this is what it takes to edit a palimpsest.

Had a most productive time yesterday with my friends and colleagues Roger Easton and Keith Knox, imaging scientists. It’s an honour to work with such brilliant yet humble and kind human beings.

Sometimes the day of a scholar looks like this: you travel for 5 hrs to Vienna for a work lunch meeting with some brilliant scholars and then another 5 hrs to get home. I’ve not reached the lunch part yet.

What are your thoughts on using contractions like don’t or isn’t in academic prose? Most of the time I find them annoying, but they do sneak into my writing on occasion. This one is one of my favourites:

Every year I have a major FOMO for not being able to attend the ELF. I only attended once, back in 2007, and had a most delightful time. May is just a very inconvenient time for travelling, particularly with 4 children.

Preaching on Matt 25.31-46 in this day and age makes for a rather lengthy sermon. 4200 words. And I still need to refine the introduction.

In preparing for my Sunday sermon on Matt 25.31-46, I’be been reminded just how much Matthias Konradt's and Dick France’s volumes do it for me. Lucid, on point and informative. Not a big fan of the commentary genre, but there are some that are quite near and dear to my heart.

I have yet to read a richer study of a manuscript in breadth and depth than David Parker's monograph on Bezae. I have used and referred to it since my MPhil days but, rereading it at this stage of my life, I'm even more amazed. And, lest we forget, he wrote most of it as a full-time clergyman!

Parker meets Epp (1992)

I often find it amusing that some of what I perceive to be my most thoughtful and important work attracts the least attention and vice versa. Oh, the serendipities of a scholarly life!

Anyone with a recent-ish experience with ZNW? How long did the peer-review take?

Book reviews are becoming something of a dying art. Which is tragic, as writing a constructive review is a genuine act of scholarly service to the readers and author alike. I suspect the way funding bodies (in some parts of the world at least) apply scientometry takes part of the blame.

As much as I loved the first three Dune books, I can't shake the all-consuming feeling of 'meh?' I experienced throughout God Emperor, the fourth instalment.

Within a week I learnt of two dear friends being affected by NEH grant terminations, one of them particularly severely (they are going to lose their job). Tragic and unbelievable the direction the US has taken. Lord have mercy!

I am happy to relate that my LMU colleague Saskia Dirkse and I will present a paper at the upcoming SBL in Boston, entitled 'Shaping Reading Strategies in the Manuscripts of the Book of Revelation’. We’ll give our paper at the New Testament Textual Criticism program unit session.