Works in the peer-reviewed journals

Student 1: What if when you're evaluating a book you can't come up with any strengths? Or vice versa, any weaknesses?
Student 2: I don't know. Just call him an asshole.

Overheard at: the Computer lab

JC or JJC?

Student: My OT TA told us for our midterm, we should focus on Collins and Crenshaw, and if we get the chance, the biblical text.

Div students are pretty talented

Student 1: If anyone at this table would be able to join the circus, it would definitely be you.
Student 2: Me? Why?
Student 1: Because you're little. And you seem fairly pliable or something.
Student 3: Ya, you have short legs. You could shoot out of an elephant's mouth or something.

Overheard at: the Common Room

Nothing. Absolutely nothing.

Student: Lost and source criticism... what more could a girl need?

You're UCC?

Student: Well, that’s what happens theologically, at least. I’m not even going to touch the Bible!

Overheard at: the commuter lounge

If we're being honest...

Student: You only love me for my Septuagint!!

Overheard in: Greek Exegesis of Mark

Hail rosemary, full of grace

Adela Collins: The Kingdom of Heaven is like a large garden herb.

Overheard in: Greek Exegesis of Mark

It was a simpler world pre-Vatican II

Sally Promey: She says like all Catholic girls, she dreamed of becoming a nun. All Catholic girls dreamed of becoming nuns? Maybe pre-Vatican II.

Overheard at: Visual Cultures of American Religion

Either you study it too much or not enough, I say

Professor: So let's look at Mark... [flips in bible] ... [pause] ...You've been studying the bible in the 19th and 20th centuries for too long when you look for Mark in the beginning of your New Testament.

The Red Violin is pretty exciting...

(class presentation on musical ecstasy)
Student presenting: There's the Red Violin, where the Baroque violin player would compose music and have sex at the same time-
Student in audience: I'VE SEEN THAT!

Who would win in a fight, Optimus Prime or HR Niebuhr? Tough call.

(On Niebuhr's Christ and Culture)
Andre Willis: And Christ the transformer... hah, wasn't that movie called Transformers... of culture.

Overheard at: Christianity and Culture

A VERY short introduction to the Hebrew Bible

John J. Collins (JJC): The problem with the Bible is too many people feel an obligation to take it seriously.

Overheard at: Dead Sea Scrolls

Catholics get all the sacraments AND sins...

Catholic: What are the seven deadly sins?
Methodist: I don't know! I'm a Methodist... we got rid of that crap!

Overheard at: Cinema and Theology

Ouch.

(on the phone)
Librarian: It'd be too expensive to mail through the library system... [pause] You could mail it yourself... [pause] You can handle it! Get a job!

Just stick to making up biblical words, ok?

Student: I'm a left door through-er.

Overheard at: Library, where the right door was broken.

Thank you, Margot Fassler

Margot Fassler: Luther is a completely different-looking guy than Calvin. They all have a look. Look at that mouth: that's not the mouth of a prude.

Overheard in: Sacred Music in the Western Christian Tradition

Wow... just wow.

Student: Wow, hookers on a merry-go-round. A dream come true.

Kobe thanks you in the name of Christian love

Andre Willis: If it helps me to love him more to go watch Kobe tonight, then that's what I'll do! As long as Kobe wins.

Overheard at: Christianity and Culture

Yay is right!

Student: Oh yay, I just opened my Greek chapter to more third declension noun types.
Child: YAY!

Overheard at: Commuter Lounge

After 9 months, I'd feel the same way

Student: Hey! What's new?
Pregnant Student: I'm due today.
Student: Shouldn't you be at home?
Pregnant Student: I'm bored. Babies... All ready a pain in the ass and it's not even out yet.

Then it makes sense.

[In a discussion of the limits of city lines and counties in a Southern state]
Student 1: I just don't get it. There is a little, city-sized hole in the county, and the city doesn't get to be part of the county, it's something else, like a city.
Student 2: Right. The city isn't part of the county, although being within the geographical bounds of the county, its status as a city exempts it from the county.
Student 1: I just don't get it.
Student 3: Think about it in terms of the dual natures of Christ!

The high seas call

Student 1: You should come with us next time we go to this sailor bar.

Student 2: Sailors? I love sailors. And bars? They're ok too.

Student 1: How's your sermon?

Student 2: It's the most evangelical thing I've ever preached and it's scaring the hell out of me!

Yes, yes he does.

Student: I'm so cynical, but Jesus loves me for it.

Damn Hollywood!

Student: I watched The Notebook this weekend while drunk and I realized where all my unrealistic expectations of love came from.

There's some agape

Student 1 (inebriated): She posted on his facebook wall! She's a whore!
Student 2: Well, fuck her.
Student 1: No! I'll fuck him! Within the bounds of holy matrimony!

Yale Health Care rocks

Student: I still have a pediatrician... She was asking me if I was sexually active while wearing teddy bear patterned scrubs.

Reading week gossip

Student 1: If you're looking for [student], he's in the library reading room.
Student 2: He studys?
Student 1: Yeah, he said he had a date with Jeramiah.
Student 2: Wow. HOT.

It's very serious, being Denys Turner

Denys Turner: A lost book is a grave sin... Calvin and total depravity come to mind.

You don't really need the other five anyway

M.A.R. Student: I don't know very much about being a Catholic... except that for some reason I have seven sacraments and everyone else only has two.

Overheard at: Div. School Apartments

Sure it is...

Student: I can bring some applesauce and beer. Applesauce is always a good birthday treat.

Red or white?

Sally Promey: I just want to make sure people would be able to come.
Student 1: If you want Div students to show up to anything, get a box of wine.
Student 2: It's true.

All right, all right, historical critical it is.

Harry Attridge: In our engagement with the scriptural text, we can legitimately say from time to time, "No, my dear brother, you are on this point mistaken!"