The Bible Faculty Summit Committee (Jeff Straub, Phil Brown, Ken Rathbun, Kevin Oberlin, Larry Oats, and Mark Ward) has come to the difficult decision that we must cancel the BFS for 2020.

We plead COVID-19.

The committee explored using Zoom, considered inviting pastors to listen in, and spoke to presenters to solicit their perspectives. But the best things about the BFS are difficult or even impossible on Zoom: open and expert feedback (and/or pushback!), fellowship with other PhD-level Bible teachers, and the opportunity for ice cream are all currently beyond its capabilities. As with church gatherings, the lockdown has helped clarify and elevate the value of face-to-face meeting.

And in God’s good providence, Faith Baptist Bible College has offered to facilitate such a meeting on July 27–29, 2021. Mark your calendars; we hope to see you there.

The Bible Faculty Summit committee feels it is too early to make a decision about any effects the Covid-19 outbreak may have upon the 2020 Summit. Committee member Ken Rathbun, a vice-president at our host school for this coming summer, concurs with the rest of the committee.

So this is a reminder that the the paper proposal period for the 2020 Summit will end Thursday, April 30, 2020. Please continue sending in proposals.

A few other notes:

• The Summit committee has not established a theme: we want to hear what you are working on.
• Your paper need not be completed till 24 hours prior to your delivering it.
• This year we will again have a publications committee working to help the best papers get published.

If you have a paper proposal which might lend itself well to a response from another participant, please contact Mark Ward.

The 2020 Bible Faculty Summit will be held Faith Baptist Bible College and Theological Seminary in Ankeny, Iowa, from Tuesday, July 28 through Thursday, July 30.

The paper proposal period will officially open January 1, 2020, and end Thursday, April 30, 2020.

The Bible Faculty Summit Publishing Committee (Brian Collins, Paul Himes, Tim Miller, and Mark Ward) is working to help 2019 Summit papers get published. Paul Himes has written a few articles offering some wisdom on how and where to publish (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3). We commend it to Summit participants.

Also, the committee would like to ask presenters to give us the bibliography information for BFS papers that have been successfully published, even in modified form and/or for a more popular audience. We are creating a Published Papers page on the website to celebrate (and promote) these successes. Here are just a small few:

BFS 2012

• Mark Ward, “The Dwarfs are for the Dwarfs: Stanley Fish, The Pragmatic Presuppositionalist,” Answers Research Journal 6 (2013):265–278.

BFS 2014

• Paul A. Himes, “Rethinking the Translation of Διδακτικός in 1 Timothy 3.2 and 2 Timothy 2.24,” The Bible Translator 68.2 (2017): 189-208.

BFS 2015

• Paul A. Himes, “First Peter’s Identity Theology and the Community of Faith: A Test-Case in How Social Scientific Criticism Can Assist with Theological Ethics via Biblical Theology,” Evangelical Quarterly 89.2 (2018): 115-32.
• Tim Miller, “Mere Christianity: An Examination of the Concept in Richard Baxter and C. S. Lewis” DBSJ 2015.

BFS 2017

• Tim Miller, “The Meaning of ‘Milk’ in 1 Peter 2:1–3” DBSJ 2018.

BFS 2018

• Paul A. Himes, “Israel and Her Vocation: The Fourth Stage of Romans 11,” BibSac 176 (Jan-March 2019): 35-50.
• Mark Ward, “Can We Trust the Biblical Manuscripts?,” Bible Study Magazine (Sep-Oct 2018).

Lastly, enjoy a little piece of wisdom from Alan Jacobs on the difference between a “critical posture” and the kind of scholarship that actually does something in the world—like serving the church.