Last week I was diagnosed with pneumonia;I had been tired for a few weeks, but had not suspected why I had been so lethargic, not to mention moribund and feverish. I am going to bow out of writing for the “Good Word” for the summer, though not from reading the blog, or the Word itself, as one means to help me to recuperate. I have come to love writing on the Scripture in this online context. Though blogs can have a tendency to get rough and ready, fesity and nasty, I think the Bible, even where readers disagree on meaning or interpretation, helps to calm things down and keeps readers, writers and commenters on an even keel. The Bible demands our humility and our love as the word of God and asks that we look even at current events with an eternal eye. I never get tired of reading the Bible – it just gets better and better – and I love writing about it and sharing it all with you. So if the pneuma has not moved me to rest, but pneumonia has, I nevertheless look forward to speaking with you all again in Fall, well-rested and re-inspired to talk Bible. In Christ,

John W. Martens

 

John W. Martens is an associate professor of theology at the University of St. Thomas, St. Paul, Minn,where he teaches early Christianity and Judaism. He also directs the Master of Arts in Theology program at the St. Paul Seminary School of Divinity. He was born in Vancouver, B.C. into a Mennonite family that had decided to confront modernity in an urban setting. His post-secondary education began at Tabor College, Hillsboro, Kansas, came to an abrupt stop, then started again at Vancouver Community College, where his interest in Judaism and Christianity in the earliest centuries emerged. He then studied at St. Michael's College, University of Toronto, and McMaster University, with stops at University of Haifa and University of Tubingen. His writing often explores the intersection of Jewish, Christian and Greco-Roman culture and belief, such as in "let the little children come to me: Children and Childhood in Early Christianity" (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2009), but he is not beyond jumping into the intersection of modernity and ancient religion, as in "The End of the World: The Apocalyptic Imagination in Film and Television" (Winnipeg: J. Gordon Shillingford Press, 2003). He blogs at  www.biblejunkies.com and at www.americamagazine.org for "The Good Word." You can follow him on Twitter @biblejunkies, where he would be excited to welcome you to his random and obscure interests, which range from the Vancouver Canucks and Minnesota Timberwolves, to his dog, and 70s punk, pop and rock. When he can, he brings students to Greece, Turkey and Rome to explore the artifacts and landscape of the ancient world. He lives in St. Paul with his wife and has two sons. He is certain that the world will not end until the Vancouver Canucks have won the Stanley Cup, as evidence has emerged from the Revelation of John, 1 Enoch, 2 Baruch, and 4 Ezra which all point in this direction.