I enjoyed two excellent papers last week, as the NT Research Seminar started up again here in Durham. There has been an attempt to include more research students this year, and the first papers were by two of them: Lionel Windsor and Wesley Hill, both third-years supervised by Prof. Francis Watson. Both papers looked at aspects of Romans. Lionel’s project focuses on Paul’s identity through the perspective of his vocation as a Jew. In this light, Paul’s missionary activity, for example, can be seen as a fulfilment of his Jewish calling: ‘providing God’s revelation to non-Jews’. Lionel offered a reading of Romans 2:17-29 from this viewpoint, raising issues about the Law and making the interesting suggestion, among others, that the setting imagined by the text was the synagogue. Wes’ thesis is equally ambitious, seeking to ground Paul’s Christology in the ‘matrix of trinitarian relationships’. In other words, the ‘place’ of Christ cannot be understood apart from the relationships with Father and Spirit. He sought to demonstrate this by reference to Romans 4, and in particular, that Paul is reading the example of Abraham through the relationship between God and Jesus, and that God raised Jesus provides a hermeneutic for reading the Abraham story.
For those who are interested, the rest of the term’s seminars are below.
17 October Dr Benjamin Schliesser (University of Zurich), “The Dialectics of Faith and Doubt in Paul and James”
24 October Prof René Bloch (University of Bern), “Who was Philo of Alexandria? Tracing autobiographic passages in Philo”
31 October Dr Simon Gathercole (University of Cambridge), “The Religious Outlook of the Gospel of Thomas”
7 November Prof John Barclay, Paul and the Gift (book preview)
14 November Dorothee Bertschmann, “The Good, the Bad, and the State: What is the meaning of to agathon in Romans 13.1-7?”
Leonard Wee: “Features in Paul’s Summaries of OT Historical Narratives”
28 November Prof Lewis Ayres, “Grammar, Polemic and the Development of Patristic Exegesis 150-250”
5 December Dr Eddie Adams (King’s College London), “Were the Pauline Churches House Churches?”
12 December Prof Francis Watson, Gospel Writing: A Canonical Perspective (book preview)
Monday, 24 October 2011 at 2:31 pm
Hi Ed
I have been skimming through your blog as i ended up here search for some answers about moving to the UK from the USA. My wife and step kids are Americans and we are going through the process of appliying for a visa for her to come to the UK to stay and work but we are worried about making sure we do not mess it up. Particularly we are (as many people these days) looking to make sure we make the most of our money and as such have not reserved anything flights wise until such time as the Visa is granted. But here’s our dilemma the application is asking for us to provide evidence of reservations with our other supporting documentation and as such we are stuck between a rock and a hard place and need some advice from anyone that can help.
Would appreciate it if you could either direct me to a good resource that could answer my question(s as i am sure there will be more) or if you could help I would be truly greatful.
I appreciate any information/advice you can give
kind regards
Glen
p.s. i sent this message to Ben on this blog as well but i realised that the post i added it to was from a few months ago so i thought it prudent to maybe attach a message to the latest post, hope this is ok
Monday, 24 October 2011 at 7:18 pm
Hi Glen,
I’m sure that Ben (or the other contributors) will be better able to answer your questions, as I haven’t made this transition myself, but could you just clarify: (a) are you coming to study (you mention coming to work, which will probably be quite a different process), and (b) are you British and it is only your wife and children that need the visa (as this will probably make it different too)? I’m sure you’ve seen the Border Agency website (http://www.ukba.homeoffice.gov.uk/visas-immigration/), but as things keep changing, it’s worth keeping an eye on it.
Really hope the process goes OK, because it’s such an unsettling time.
Tuesday, 25 October 2011 at 1:32 pm
Hi Ed
I am a UK Citizen living in the UK, my wife is American and we are applying (well have made the application) for a Visa for her and her kids to come here to live and work.
I understand it is a bit different to your situation but what I was hoping there were at least some similarities. It is really around the fact that they are asking about an itinary or evidence of reservations of flights in the documents we have to supply but i am loathed to purchase or even put a deposit down before knowing we have been successful for fear of losing the money because they take a lot longer than we bargained for. So I was wondering if you had any experience in this part (as in applying for the Visa) and whether you supplied any sort of itinary or reservation details with your application
Thank you very much for responding i appreciate that my situation is different so if there is nothing you can give me then that is cool it was just more a case of trying to get as much information as possible before we sent the infomation off
kind regards
Glen
Thursday, 27 October 2011 at 12:56 pm
Hi Glen,
I’ve canvassed a few people here, and it seems that, for student visas anyway, the dates that have to be given are more like advisory dates, since the visa is granted based on the dates of the actual course. Most people therefore book their flights after the visa has been granted. This is not much use to you, I realise, so you are probably best contacting the Border Agency as Glen says.
Sorry to not be of more help, and I hope it all works out.
Ed.
Tuesday, 25 October 2011 at 8:01 pm
Glen,
I would suggest calling the Border Agency. I have found the people to be very friendly and helpful when I have been uncertain about how to fill out parts of the applications.
Regards,
Jason
Saturday, 3 December 2011 at 2:20 pm
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