One Monk's Journey Through Faith

I hope so. Since I've applied to join the official Biblioblog list, I suppose I should reintroduce myself. My name's Gary. I'm a 24-year-old American white guy with an intense love for studying Scripture and for memorization. Theologically and politically, I am moderate bordering on conservative. I cannot stand the far left nor the far right in politics or theology. I find pacifism and the gender debate to be issues of interest. I'm a soft complementarian, and I will occasionally post exegesis/reflection from that standpoint. Honestly, I don't feel motivated to try and persuade others to this view -- especially females. A lesson I've learned is that you can't argue with suffering, and so I don't want to waste my time. That said, I'm more than willing to interact with female bibliobloggers, although if the gender debate is the nexus of their interest, I will not feel inclined to interact much.

I don't care much for systematic theology and I haven't read many influential theologians. I don't have a degree, although I did attend a pastoral school for three years. I focused very heavily on studying Greek. I can match most master's students who went to that university (in fact, I've tutored some).

While I may not have a degree (yet), I do have several skills that I've polished over the past five years: exegesis, translation, memorization, comfort with Koine Greek, a basic working knowledge of biblical Hebrew, and a mind that analyzes the heck out of things while still maintaining an openness to the relational/artistic side of life.

I have experience that goes beyond my years. I can recite several chapters of the Bible from memory in Greek, as well as a few in Hebrew. I will not give a full listing, but I do know Philippians, Psalm 23, and the Sermon on the Mount by heart. My goal for this year is to memorize LXX Joel and Matthew 1-4. Next year I will learn LXX Jonah and Matthew 8-14. The next two years will hopefully entail the complete memorization of Matthew's Gospel.

If I continue an academic education, which I hope to do, I may either focus on NT textual criticism or Greek linguistics. As my above goal would imply, I intend to specialize in Matthew. I wonder what my favorite professor, Curt Niccum, would recommend.

As an example of my translation practice, I'd point you to my recent post on Philippians 2. You see, now that I've memorized the book, I'm going through and trying to make a literary translation. I may not know Hellenistic Greek beyond the LXX and NT, but I do know a thing or two about writing with style. Although, I haven't been getting comments on my Philippians series since the opening post, so I hope my readership (whoever that is) has been interested in reading it.

Side note: apparently there was a malfunction with my previous template. For some reason it picked today. So, I had to switch. This may be temporary -- we'll see what comes along later.