Welcome!

Greetings, friends!

Welcome to my blog! I hope you will find it to be a place to raise thought-provoking questions and interact deeply on a variety of topics. I must admit, I attribute my desire to establish this blog to two people. First, Dr. Anathea Portier-Young at Duke, who told us in my class on Genesis with her some 4 years ago that many scholars (a status towards which I am hopefully quite near!) maintained blogs. And second, Dr. Chris Heard of Pepperdine, whose blog I came across recently (and whose book, 'Dynamics of Diselection: Ambiguity in Genesis 12-36 and Ethnic Boundaries in Post-Exilic Judah' has proven seminal in my work on the Jacob cycle).

Please read my blogger profile to get a sense of who I am and some of my interests. At present, I am preparing to take comprehensive exams/prelims in April/May, so I have never read as much as I am currently! This breadth of reading has, however, opened up some fascinating topics that I hope to address here on the blog in the coming days. The other noteworthy news is that my first article, "Jacob, Laban, and a Divine Trickster: The Covenantal Framework of God's Deception in the Theology of the Jacob Cycle," will be out in the Spring 2009 issue of 'Perspectives in Religious Studies.' I may post that here also, given it is a formative piece for my dissertation, as a means of getting further feedback on the topic as I forge onward.

I look forward to reading your comments!

All the best!
ja