It’s five years since I started on this path and I’m not done yet. Here’s what it’s already cost me:

Physical health:
I eat badly when I’m stressed and when I’m working to a deadline. For most of the last five years, it’s been one or other or both of those. Consequently, I now weigh four stone more than I did when I started. Spending days tied to a desk, staring at a computer, also means that I am even more unfit that when I began.

Also my teeth are in really bad condition because I haven’t been able to afford the dental treatment I’ve needed. I’ve been to an emergency dentist a couple of times, but that’s it. I don’t qualify for any of the categories that would entitle me to free treatment and for at least half the time, I’ve lived in places where it’s been virtually impossible to find an NHS dentist.

Mental health
For the first two years of the PhD, I was unhappy. That was because I was living overseas and was homesick.

For the last three years, due to a combination of factors all connected in some way to the PhD, I have been depressed. I’m taking medication and I’ve had counselling, which all helps. But still, I would say that this is a direct consequence of being a PhD student. The loneliness, the fear, the burden of a long-term deadline – every PhD student goes through this, even if they don’t have all the other stuff I’ve had to deal with.

Financial cost
To be fair, this has been minimal. I began the PhD with no money and I am ending it with no debt. People have been generous and funding has always appeared when I have most needed it. Mostly, I have learned not to worry about money, but there have been a few occasions when I’ve not known how I was going to pay bills.

Friendships
I have lost friends over the last five years. I have been a very bad friend to a number of people in that time. I’ve had to prioritise work over people in a way that I wish I hadn’t. It’s hard for people to get what it’s like being a PhD student and it’s frustrating to have to keep trying to explain. Sometimes it’s easier just to let the friendship drift.

If I had known five years ago what it was going to cost me, I would never have begun. As it is, I don’t know whether I will finish.

One of those reasons has been that I have been applying for a job. I was interviewed today and didn’t get it. This adds one more to the long list of Jobs I Have Not Got.

These places have all Not Given Me A Job (this is not a fully comprehensive list; those in bold are where I got to the interview stage):
St Ebbes, Oxford (twice)
St Andrew the Great, Cambridge
St Nicks, Sevenoaks (three times)
LymingtonRushmore Holidays (three times)
St Dionys, Parsons Green
Christ Church, Cockfosters
St Barnabas, Kensington
Holy Trinity, Lyonsdown
Knowle Parish Church
Bishop Hannington Church
St Leonards, Exeter
Lichfield Diocese

These places have Given Me A Job (this is a fully comprehensive list):
Fairmile Court Conference Centre: Assistant Chef
Fort Pitt Grammar School: Maths teacher
St Andrews, Oxford: Parish Assistant
Westminster Seminary: Greek Teaching Fellow (part time)
Tyndale House: Admin staff (part time)
Other than the teaching job and my current part time admin job, these have all been 1 year posts.

By contrast, everywhere I have ever applied to study has offered me a place.

So, here’s my question. Why don’t I get ministry jobs?* What is it about me that makes me so utterly unemployable? I need to know, because I’m fast running out of options to study more and I think a job in academic research would be the quickest route to ruining my mental health on a permanent basis. I work hard; I’m a fast learner; I’m good with people; I’m a great teacher; I have lots of things I’m really, really good at. I won’t teach your kids Sunday school classes or run your toddler group, but other than that I’ll do whatever you need me to. I won’t undermine you or threaten your authority but I’ll push you to be as good a minister as you can be to your congregation.

*I don’t have a particularly good record of getting other kinds of jobs either, but I think my inadequacies as a school teacher who can’t coach second 11 hockey would probably cloud the issue here.

Amen. Come, Lord Jesus.

I did one of the readings, and since they asked me to choose what I wanted to read, they got something from the Song of Songs. The passage that I read included the wedding procession of 3:6ff in which the bridegroom arrives perfumed with frankincense and myrrh, in a carriage inlaid with gold. In a totally unrelated decision, they chose to sing a couple of Christmas carols in the service, including O Come All Ye Faithful, with the following verse:

Lo, star-led chieftains,
Magi, Christ adoring,
Offer him incense, gold, and myrrh;
We to the Christ-child
Bring our hearts’ oblations…

Coincidence? I think not.

More information about the conference is here and booking forms are here.

But I have been amused by the origin of the word dad suggested in several lexicons: child’s babble. Now, it’s true that babies learning to speak do indeed often make that sound, ‘dadadadada’. In English, we have interpreted this as recognition of the child’s father (just as ‘mamamamama’ is taken to be recognition of the mother). In Israel, apparently, it was interpreted as an expression of hunger, or recognition of the food source of the infant. It seems likely to me that both cultures are equally guilty of reading in their own meaning to the infant’s sounds. As far as I can see, babies just like making these kinds of sounds for the sheer pleasure of being able to do so. Associated meanings come much later.

This was a discussion of Ellen Davis’s ‘Scripture, Culture and Agriculture’. Craig Bartholomew and David Moessner responded to the book, then Ellen Davis responded to them, and then there was general discussion. The focus of the book is an agrarian reading of the Old Testament, drawing attention to various models of land care. She notes, for example, the importance of the term ‘seed’ in Genesis 1, with respect to the plants given for food. She observes the fragility but also the extraordinary richness of the land which the Israelites were given to farm. She points out that in iron-age Israel, the division between rural and urban was not nearly so sharp as it is today, and that most people were more-or-less directly dependent on their land. Both respondents raised the question of the effect of the new covenant on this issue and there was some discussion about this. It was an interesting and stimulating session and I think the seminar is doing some really good work.

Saturday, 1-3.30pm, Ancient Hebrew Poetry: Linguistics and Literary Approaches

Christo van der Merwe: Explaining Word Order in the Book of Joel
I think Christo’s point was that although there are more examples of non-standard word order in poetic texts such as Joel, the reasons why the word order varies are the same as in non-poetic texts.

Randall Buth: Multiple Frontings in Poetry
Um, it happens sometimes? One thing is fronted for contextualisation and the other for focus. I don’t know that I have any more to say about that.

Eep Talstra: Word Order, Clausal Hierarchy and Syntactic Function
Eep is producing a syntactic database of the OT. I am sure it will be very useful.

Pierre van Hecke: Word Order in Clauses with Haya
Sometimes these are copular (a is b) and sometimes existential (there is X). One of these has a particular word order, but I would need to check my notes to tell you which it is and what the word order is.

Saturday 4-5pm, Recovering Female Interpreters of the Bible
Michael Graves: Marcella of Rome – Technical Exegesis as an Expression of Piety
We know about Marcella from her correspondence with Jerome. She apparently asked him lots of searching and insightful questions, for which he valued her.

Al Wolters: Ann Francis (1738-1800) on the Song of Songs
Ann Francis was the wife of a Norfolk clergyman who wrote several volumes of poetry, including a Poetical Translation of the Song of Songs, published in the eighteenth century and read by several eminent OT scholars of the day. She included notes on her translation based on her understanding of the Israelite landscape, flora and fauna. Interestingly, she discerned three voices in the Song: one male, one Jewish female and one Gentile female, and she did not interpret the Song allegorically. I’d like to track down her translation one day.

That’s it for now. Will report on Sunday and Monday, and my paper, later.

Friday: On the same flight from Philly to New Orleans as my former PhD advisor. Lots of time to catch up while waiting for the airport shuttle bus to our hotels. Scripture and Hermeneutics Seminar discussing Ellen Davis’s book, ‘Scripture, Culture, and Agriculture’. Interesting discussions at the seminar and also over dinner, where I was at a table with another HTC student and a guy who is at Tyndale House.

Saturday: Started very early with the Tyndale House American Alumni breakfast. I checked everyone in, got to eat the breakfast, then had several useful conversations about the Tyndale Fellowship and Tyndale House. I think quite a lot of people appreciated having the chance to talk to someone on the admin staff, as well as the research fellows. In the afternoon, I gave my paper. I think that probably needs its own post. Dinner with old friends in the evening.

Sunday: Went to hear a friend’s paper in the morning and then we went for lunch together afterwards. Some interesting papers in the Hebrew Poetry section in the afternoon. In the evening, I’d arranged to meet a friend at the King’s College reception – these receptions with free food and drinks are excellent things for poor students.

Monday: Chatted to the Masons this morning, then went to a cookery demonstration at the New Orleans School of Cookery. The chef was Big Kevin (who some of my British readers may remember from the TV series Big Kevin, Little Kevin on BBC2 a few years ago). He was both hilarious and an excellent cook. We had biscuits with dark, thick cane syrup, then red beans and rice, cornbread, pecan pie and pralines. It was all delicious and I really shouldn’t have had seconds of everything but it was just too good to resist. Today was the first day it’s been sunny since I arrived in New Orleans, so after lunch I went for a walk along the river and a little bit around the French Quarter. This evening, I’m going to a dinner that John Hobbins has organised, and then tomorrow I’ll be flying home.