It has been a while since I’ve written here, about eight years! Lots have happened since then (Trump is still running for office, I finished my PhD, and there was a pandemic), but instead of boring you with a recap of the past eight years of my life, I’ll bore you with some upcoming projects I’m working on (in no particular order).

Currently I’m finishing up a chapter in an upcoming edited book entitled The Cambridge Companion to the Bible and Linguistics, ed. Stanley E. Porter (Cambridge University Press). My chapter in this volume is on Greek syntax, and it has taken a lot longer to work on than imagined. I am approaching Greek syntax from the viewpoint of Systemic Functional Linguistics, a linguistic framework I inherited from my Doktorvater, Stan Porter, and one that I have found (more and more) to be a useful description of language and its function (although this does not necessarily negate other approaches). I think Greek syntax is best described in terms of the different ranks (or levels of discourse), such as word group, clause, and clause complex. Additionally, two main ways of looking at syntax in general are constituency and dependency, and while I think Greek is better described in terms of dependency, I think both are helpful ways of viewing syntactic relations.

There are also two edited books that Stan and I are co-editing in two already established series: Pauline Ethics in the Pauline Studies series, vol. 11 (Brill), and Christian Origins and the Formation of the Early Church in the Early Christianity in Its Hellenistic Context series, vol. 5 and Texts and Editions for New Testament Study series (Brill). These are delayed quite a bit, and my apologies to the contributors for the delay of these volumes, but excellent essays in both! We just published an edited book entitled The Johannine Prologue and Its Resonances in the Johannine Studies series, vol. 4 (Brill) with some interesting essays in it, and there seems to be some positive interest in it so far.

Another co-edited volume that Stan and I are working on is entitled The Pauline Mind (Routledge). This is purported to be the first volume in a series called Routledge Religious Minds, parallel to the already established Routledge Philosophical Minds series. This volume will contain 42 chapters on various aspects of Paul and his thought, including influences on Paul, reception of Paul, legacy of Paul, and of course the thoughts (and theology) of Paul. It aims to be one of the most comprehensive volumes on Paul, and could very well be conceived as a graduate level textbook (once it’s out!). We have some top-level scholars contributing to this one as well (and my apologies to them as well for the delay, except for those whom we are still waiting on).

Finally, I am excited to be co-authoring a Greek handbook on Hebrews with Cynthia Long Westfall in the Baylor Handbook on the Greek New Testament series. I believe this and 1-2 Thessalonians are the last ones left in the series, so we are excited to help bring the series closer to completion. I recently co-authored the handbook on Romans with Stan, which came out in print last year. Cindy is a well-established Hebrews scholar, and she graciously invited me to collaborate on this project with her. We’re “mostly” done with this one, so hopefully we can see it in print next year at some point, hopefully before SBL.

I have some other projects that I’ve agreed to do or have ruminating somewhere, and some upcoming publications (got a chapter on prominence and markedness, one on speech functions in Galatians, and one on the spiritual-but-not-religious movement, all in the final stages of publication), but these are some of the ones I wanted to mention here. As they say, so much to do, so little time!

— Dave