The following is an essay I wrote for our Wittenberg University community. These are compiled on Wittenberg’s site and will be periodically shared here as well: “Presidential Communications” Wittenberg Community, June 19, 1865, twenty years after Wittenberg College was founded, news of the Emancipation Proclamation finally reached all the states […]
Academics
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This month (May 2026) my third essay for the Buechner Review was published, “The Dawn Chorus: Hearing God’s Call.” It is a reflection on my own deliberations (and prayers) before answering the call to become Wittenberg University’s 16th President, one year ago. Frederick Buechner’s autobiographical spiritual reflections serve as a […]
Below is my inauguration address. All of these speeches and things are being archived at the President’s website, but I thought there are likely some of my friends who only see Targuman.org. I am deeply grateful that my friend and colleague the Rev. Canon Dr. Hugh Page provided the Keynote […]
This year’s Society of Biblical Literature meeting was special for me as I completed my second (and final) three-year term as a member of Council. The last six years have been eventful, to say the least. In that time there have been debates (and complaints) about having to print our […]
I have a deep desire, often uncontrollable, to be understood. More specifically, that my ideas and arguments should be understood. It is a horrible habit and I have been aware of it for decades and I fight against these inclinations, and often lose. It can ruin relationships and it has […]
“Some years ago, during a service at our church, my eyes wandered (I am sorry to say) to a banner that was propped up in the corner. It was to be part of a float that the children were preparing to enter in a local carnival, and on it was […]
In the last two months I have had the joy of being a guest on several podcasts, two scholarly and academic that I will post when they are published, and two about Honors education and our Lewis Honors College at the University of Kentucky. The two podcasts below are from […]
Thirty years ago in August, Elizabeth and I were married. Over our honeymoon, I was encouraged to send in an application to the Oxford Centre for Postgraduate Hebrew & Jewish Studies for their one-year “Graduate Diploma.” I was admitted and received a full scholarship, so we deferred the offer from […]
Dean is absolutely right. It has always rubbed me the wrong way. Very similar to the way in which “Dean Dad,” a community college dean who blogs anonymously, would openly mock or criticize his faculty and others who were in their community. Oddly enough, Inside Higher Ed decided to make […]
Several years ago I offered a “brief definition” of Targum and the Targumim but here is the more detailed entry I wrote for the Dictionary for Theological Interpretation of the Bible. The Hebrew term “targum” (plural “targumim”) literally means “translation,” but in the rabbinic period (c. 1st century – 7th century CE) the term came to […]