The Fun Part

The Fall Quarter has come to an end. As of last Thursday, I am officially on Christmas Break. When you're a Ph.D student, this is when the fun begins. At Fuller, your seminar is broken up into two phases. The first phase is the seminar itself. In my case, I spent the Quarter reading and studying with my mentor, Dr. Clay Schmit, on the Theology of Preaching. It consisted of reading a series of books on preaching. Almost all of them were revelatory. The first two books have influenced my thinking in such profound ways that I think it may have helped to clarify what I will do with my dissertation. Another of the books has made me ask questions about basic areas of preaching that are extremely important to me - questions about performance theory and the relationship of the Holy Spirit to the preaching event; questions about the role of the listener in the formation of the sermon and the whether the key theological issue in preaching is the Cross or the Resurrection. As I indicated, the books where revelatory.
But now, the second phase of the seminar begins. After all the classwork and reading is done, the final requirement is to write a research paper. The paper is usually between 30 and 40 pages and centers on an area of interest to the student that arises out of the seminar. During this period, you probably read more than you do during the Quarter. I currently have about 35 books surrounding me that I am using for my research paper. Unlike a term paper, I am not trying to show the teacher that I know something about the subject. As a matter of fact, I'm pretty sure I know more about the subject I am writing on than Clay does (that's not a slam at him, either). This kind of research is designed to be concentrated detective work. You are looking for new connections or understandings that others may not have seen or made. For instance, in this paper I am looking to understand a historical character by the name of Erasmus. He was a philologist (a grammarian) who helped put together a quality Greek manuscript of the New Testament and helped to correct the Latin version of the Bible (called the Latin Vulgate). By the time I am finished with the paper, I hope to know more about Erasmus and about the implications of his translation of one word from the Gospel of John (how he translated the Greek word logos in John 1:1 - "in the beginning was the word (logos)". In the Vulgate he changed the translation from the Latin word verbum to the word sermo. The implications of that simple change of one Latin word for another changed the life and work of Erasmus. It may also help to change the way in which preachers and homiletics professors understand preaching.
And for me, this is where the fun part begins. I enjoy both the reading/research part and the organizing/writing part. I have already written 10 pages in the last two days. I have barely scratched the surface. By the time I'm finished with this, I may know more about Erasmus, sermo and verbum than 99.9% of the people in the world. I guess this is what it means to be a scholar. Sounds like fun to me!