Category Archives: Mentoring & New Students

The Making of a Biblical Scholar

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While this website focuses on the work of women at the Ph.D. level, we also like to feature women who aspire to be biblical scholars. Jennifer Guo has just traded in her career as an accountant for full-time graduate study. Already her passion for research has produced a well-trafficked blog ranked in the top 50 Biblioblogs. Guo recently became a member of SBL and will be attending the SBL conference this fall.

Up until halfway through my undergraduate studies I was a staunch atheist. My whole life I had thought that science had all the answers or at least had the potential of answering all the important questions; I was 100% convinced that nothing supernatural existed or could possibly exist, and, accordingly, I never sought anything spiritual.

Like Paul on the road to Damascus to persecute the fledgling Church, the Lord ambushed me with an encounter in the library of a university renowned for the natural sciences, on my way to a Bachelor degree in chemistry. My conversion was radical and dramatic – I went from atheist to “Jesus freak” through that one encounter with God in the library, with no questioning or seeking or floundering in between. Starting the very next day I was “all in,” seeking the Lord with all my heart, soul, mind, and strength.

A week later I was gifted a Bible and I started devouring it, reading it multiple times a day, every day. By God’s grace I grew very fast, and soon started serving in both campus ministry and in my church, primarily in leading Bible studies and prayer meetings. Throughout the 10 years since then I have continued serving in various ways in college ministry, in church, and in a parachurch performing arts ministry; but I never felt called to pursue full-time vocational ministry and, until recently, never thought I’d go to seminary. But I’ve recently felt called to pursue academia, and I will be starting an M.Div at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School this fall.  More→

On Being a Woman and A Bible Major

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Recently Sarah Schwartz asked her friend Julie Dykes to write a guest post putting “her experience as a female Biblical Studies major at a conservative evangelical university into words.” The post is a poignant reminder of the importance of mentoring young women who aspire to be biblical scholars especially if they are in contexts that discourage them from pursuing that possibility. We asked Dykes if we could republish her post here, and she graciously agreed.

“So, what’s your major?” they would ask for the millionth time, because that’s what college students do when they meet each other.

“Biblical and Theological studies,” I would reply with enthusiasm.

“Oh,” they would say, their eyebrows shooting up in surprise. “I never would’ve expected it. Well, what do you want to do with your major, then? Do you want to be a children’s pastor, or something?” More→