A Funny Thing Happened on the Road to Damascus - Part Three
A Short Biography of Michael Bird
Doctoral Studies
I did my doctoral studies at the University of Queensland during 2002-2005. My thesis topic was on Jesus and the Gentiles, largely expounding on N.T. Wright’s Jesus and the Victory of God, pp. 308-10 about how Jesus’ view of Israel’s restoration related to Gentiles. In sum, the problem was how do Jesus’ remarks in Matt 10:5-6, “Don’t go to the Gentiles, or Samaritans, go only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel” relate to the Great Commission of Matt 28:19-20 or even to the Pauline mission to the Gentiles. My answer was, in effect, that Jesus believed that a transformed Israel would transform the world, which is why he was open to Gentiles he encountered. You can read my doctoral thesis for $27 from Logos called, Jesus and the Origins of the Gentile Mission.
My doctoral supervisor was Dr. Rick Strelan, former Lutheran missionary to PNG, and specialist in Luke-Acts. Rick was a great supervisor, thorough, learned, wise, returned chapters quickly, and always pressed me to be careful in what I could prove. He wasn’t enthusiastic or convinced by my thesis - in his mind there is no access to a historical Jesus - but he indulged me anyway. My associate supervisor was Dr. Bob Webb from McMaster University in Canada, great guy, very helpful and knowledgeable - he pointed out that a PhD thesis should not be an N.T. Wright imitation, it’s a specific genre of writing, an apprenticeship in the academic craft. My examiners were Peter Bolt (Moore Theological College) and Scot McKnight (North Park University). I passed with minor corrections! Bob and Scot both recommended my thesis for publication with LNTS. Thereafter, I developed a close relationship with Scot who has been a dear friend ever since and something of a mentor to me. A real father-figure for a father-less young scholar!
It was around this time that I started blogging, initially on blogger, but soon at patheos. For a good while I teamed up with my friend Joel Willitts until it became hard for him to manage. But I’ve been blogging ever since. It was blogging of all things that kind of got me a bit more attention among pastors, seminary students, doctoral researchers, other scholars, and even some publishers. My blog Euangelion has now been going for over 15 years.
The Move to Scotland
I was sitting in the Morling College library in Sydney one day when I saw a journal called Scottish Bulletin of Evangelical Theology, I then managed to get an article published in it, and had a good conversation with the editor Alistair I. Wilson who then taught at Highland Theological College. One day I was trying to keep track of what Alistair was doing, I clicked on the HTC webpage and saw a NT job advertised. Alistair was going to South Africa and there was a vacancy at HTC. So I applied and got an interview. It was on the way back from the hospital with our second child, Alyssa, that I told my wife that I had a job interview for a position in Scotland.
It was during the ANZAC day weekend of 2005 that HTC Principal Andrew McGowan phoned me up to formally offer me the job at HTC, to which I accepted. I submitted my doctoral thesis soon after and then headed off to Scotland with Naomi and our two girls.
We loved our time in Scotland. The HTC family was fantastic. My colleagues were Andrew McGowan, Hector Morrison, Jamie Grant, Innes Visagie, and Martin Cameron. Terrific staff and students. We were based in Dingwall just outside Inverness. A truly breath-taking part of the world next to the Moray Firth and Ben Nevis. As a British-Aussie citizen, the immigration stuff was way easier. I loved teaching, struggled a bit with admin as the British system is admin intense, but my research began to blossom. I was able to start attending conferences such as ETS, SBL, BNTC, EABS, and SNTS. I saw snow for the first time and loved it. Then I started driving in snow and learned to hate snow. I began to get offered publishing contracts and started to “get my name out there” as they say. At one point I was invited to apply for a position at St. Andrews University, which I did, made the final three, but didn’t get the job. I was glad to see HTC and its parent sponsor become the University of the Highlands and Islands.
We also stopped going to the local Baptist church and began attending a wonderful Free Church congregation in Dingwall. I was gradually becoming more Reformed in both ecclesiology and theology. I was less phased by the idea of infant baptism and was no longer inclined to Baptist church governance.
Let me give one funny story. I once led communion as a guest preacher at a Presbyterian church. It was weird because it turned out that they didn’t want one sermon but more like three sermons on things like “fencing the table” which I had no idea about. Thankfully years of study and teaching meant I could do the cross and resurrection fairly off the cuff and sound coherent. After the service, the senior minister asked me which Presbytery I was ordained in. I replied, “I’m not ordained!” His face suddenly went ashen, his eyes bulged out, and his mouth dropped. He assumed that because I taught at HTC that I was an ordained Presbyterian minister. I’ll never forget his reply, “That doesn’t bother me at all Michael, that’s fine. But would ya do me one wee favour? Let’s not mention this to the elders in my church!” In hindsight, totes hilarious.
Around this time, I published several books including Jesus and the Origins of the Gentile Mission (my PhD thesis), The Saving Righteousness of God (collected essays on Paul and the New Perspective), Crossover Over Sea and Land: Jewish Missionary Activity in the Second Temple Period (the off-cuts to my PhD Thesis), Are You the One Who is to Come? The Historical Jesus and the Messianic Question (trying to prove that Jesus thought he was the Messiah), A Bird’s-Eye View of Paul (a short intro to Paul), and with James Crossley, How Did Christianity Begin? (a believer and non-believer look at Christian Origins).
I had a great professional friendship with Joel Willitts and Scot McKnight. I got to know Joel because he wrote a paper on “Why I Decided Not To Be a Historical Jesus Scholar.” I responded by writing him a “letter” can you believe? Scot recruited Joel, me, and Lynn Cohick to co-edit Zondervan’s new Story of God Bible Commentary series. I got introduced to the great people at Zondervan like Katya Covrett and Jesse Hillman and they’ve been among my closest friends in Christian academia ever since. So I got to spend more time with Zondervan and this great editorial team.
As much as we loved HTC the college did struggle financially, salaries were just adequate to live on, and we only survived thanks to my preaching honoraria and government subsidies. That, plus the pull of the heart-strings from parents, my mother was dying from a brain tumour, meant we needed to go home back to Australia. I was succeeded at HTC by Jason Maston, a great NT scholar, now at Houston Baptist University.
Whatever success I’ve had now I owe in part to the great people at HTC who gave me my first job, encouraged me in scholarship, and looked after as best they could. I served at HTC for four and a half years. We loved it, but it was time to go home.
We also had our third child in Scotland. Markus, named after Markus Barth and my appreciation also for the work of Markus Bockmuehl (seriously, see his Philippians commentary and book on Jewish Law in Gentile Churches!). We learned that boys are different. Also, just as we were about to leave Scotland, we found out we were having our fourth child. So poor Naomi had to plan and pack up a household for an international move while looking after three kids and experiencing morning sickness.
In the next biographical post, I’ll talk about the return to Australia!