About Pat

Balance. Nuance. Tension. Such themes pervade my thoughts in nearly all areas of life, including scholarship. Being a committed Anabaptist Christian, while also seeking to be an uncompromising scholar of the Bible and Christian origins, provides my ultimate challenge in maintaining said balance. What my scholarship and my faith commitment both share, however, is a pursuit of truth and knowledge.

People who click on this “About Pat” page are surely looking to find a category for me. Is he conservative? Liberal? Moderate? Progressive? Fundamentalist? Radical? Calvinist? Arminian? Democrat? Republican? Coffee drinker? Tea drinker? I hope that I can remain mysterious enough so that you don’t automatically place me into a box. If you choose to be a dialogue partner with me on this blog, I will try to honor you by not putting you in a box. But, I will help you with a few descriptive details. I am currently a Ph.D. student in New Testament and Christian origins at UCLA (see more about that decision at this post), having received a M.Div. from Fuller Seminary and a B.A. in biblical studies from Messiah College. The program at UCLA is taught from the perspective of social history, which—combined with my Fuller education—makes me a theologically-trained social historian of the Bible.

Working under Scott Bartchy and closely with Ra’anan Boustan, I am currently focused on studying apocalyptic thought and identity in early Judaism and the Jesus movement, a topic perhaps influenced by my own search for hidden mysteries. As I mentioned earlier, I am an Anabaptist Christian, a member of both the Brethren in Christ and Mennonite Church (USA) denominations. As an Anabaptist, I am not particularly doctrinaire, but I agree with (and try to live by) all of the “core values” of the Brethren in Christ Church. My favorite meal is probably homemade macaroni and cheese, while my favorite dessert is banana cream cheesecake from The Cheesecake Factory.

Making sure that I do not indulge too deeply in that last point, my amazing wife is a Registered Dietitian and lactation educator with a Master of Public Health from UCLA. Being much more grounded in reality than I am, she works to provide nutritional counseling and breastfeeding support to low-income mothers. Together, we are parents to a beautiful (and fabulously challenging!) son, Declan, born in December of 2008.

You can contact me at: pgmccullough (AT) ucla (DOT) edu

About kata ta biblia

This is a blog exploring the New Testament and early Christianity from the perspective of an Anabaptist academic, while also exposing my own curiosities about the strange journey to academia. The title is Greek and literally means “according to the books.” For me, it represents the journey to explore the meaning found within many “texts,” particularly the New Testament. I especially hope to explore social issues that gave rise to the texts as well as the social implications of history’s (and contemporary) interpretation of those texts. I want to engage scholarly issues, but remain accessible to interested lay-folk. I am also interested in leaving my blog a little open-ended to generally focus on the interpretation of texts, be they sacred, scholarly, or popular. I hope my Anabaptism biases me just enough to make this blog interesting, but not quite so much to make me an ideologue. If you’d like to send me infuriated emails, toss them on over here. Positive and encouraging feedback, of course, would also be welcome.

“The Levites . . . instructed the people in the Torah while the people were standing there. They read from the Book of the Torah of God, making it clear and giving the meaning so that the people could understand what was being read.” (Neh 8:7-8)

“Everyone then who hears these words of mine and acts on them will be like a wise person who built their house on rock” (Mt 7:24).

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