7 days to go

So, what happened to eight days away? S-T-R-E-S-S!!!! Actually, I wasn't so much stressed about the defense as much as I felt some stress about other stuff in life. I think we all wish life were simpler some days. Yesterday was one of those days.

In the words of John Astin in his Night Court role, I'm feeling much better now.

It is indeed seven days from my defense. A week from now I will be pacing nervously, eating cheetos, and most probably spilling coffee all over the one dress shirt I bring to Milwaukee with me. I'll probably actually pack seven of them, just to be safe.

I plan on reading the dissertation once or twice more between now and then. I want to try and read it from an examiner's point of view, which may (or may not) help me anticipate questions. I have three Old Testament profs on the board, one New Testament prof, and one systematics prof. I'm glad I have a systematician as a reader, but I really am not sure what to expect from him. In addition to being a systematics teacher, he's brilliant. My hope with his questions will be to understand them. Giving a coherent response is undoubtedly beyond my range. I suspect the NT prof will look at relating my work to Luke-Acts, an area in which he has published a bit. That should be fairly easy to deal with. I think one of the OT profs will question me a bit about my approach to source-critical questions in the Saul narratives of 1 Samuel. I wasn't particularly comfortable writing that section, so I am just hoping that my lack of confidence on some of those points does not show through too badly. The other two, one of which is my director, will be interested in the theological issues presented in the dissertation itself--the argument. That, of course, is the area about which I feel most secure. We'll see if that confidence is warranted in a week.