If anyone is interested in speaking of their experiences in the areas of Hebrew, Ancient Near Eastern Studies, OT, NT, or Religious studies, let me know.

Which university are you at currently, what is you general experience of it, and the big question, how are the job prospects for after? We could use this forum to discuss things a little closer to our area if anyone is game.

what do you mean by experiences - their experiences as a religious person or as a student of religion?

Thanks for the reply.

I am speaking more of ones academic experience in the context of the areas of study I listed.
Areas of discussion could include: I am curious how people have dealt with gaining French and German (a common hurdle in our areas of study), whther they are self-taught, what texts they have found useful or whether their universities classes (which problematically are often for learning to speak German and French) prep them for comps, how they find doing that first publication (I have tried a few and have some opinions), which journals of a relatively high quality they have found more open to having PhD students publish in, what resources they have found helpful outside of their departments, etc.

Just attempting to find discussion partners with a similar area of study, but I am not interested to discuss the relationship between faith and the academy (while an important topic) in this context.

my friend doing theology took university run language courses. i think they ran some specialist courses.

I'm currently doing a PhD in a different discipline, but about 4 years ago, when I was about to finish my first BA (in Classics) I became very interested in the subject of Early Christianity and started looking for postgraduate courses in the UK. Apparently some of the best departments are Durham, King's College and, of course, Oxbridge. However when I graduated I took a different path and did not go into Religious Studies.
Last year, while looking for a PhD position, I considered again one in religious studies at the University of Cardiff. Apparently they had few suitable candidates and (reading Latin, French and German) I was well-positioned. I didn't get the impression that the field was extremely competitive. Didn't apply to it though...

As for the languages - I am a language geek and learned French (besides English) during my secondary education, and then German in an extra-curricular course at University. If you only want languages to read bibliography and not to actually speak them, the best thing to do (after you've learned the basis of grammar, of course) is... er... start reading, even if at the beginning you will probably need to look up every word.

Oh, and about job prospects - I usually take a look at the postdoc/lecturing positions advertised in www.jobs.ac.uk (I'm only 6 months into my PhD, it's out of curiosity reality) and I'm always amazed to see that, in the Humanities area, Religious Studies positions tend to be the most frequent! Don't know if that's really indicative of anything - but one would say there's a boom of the discipline or a shortage of academics...

Thanks Nimrod81

I am just finishing the first year also and also always look at the jobs just to follow what is up.

I am mostly Hebrew Bible and had to get the ancient languages first (Heb, Greek, Aramaic, Syriac) and now must get the German and French for modern scholarship.

I have worked through a German grammar and am just translating articles for my PhD research; slow going.
But I am going to a different school where there are classes in these languages, but more for speaking not reading.

Have you found these classes helpful for reading academic articles/books, or would you just suggest plowing through the articles and not worry about the classes?

I think the required German/French exams for the school I am going into is translating 500 words in 2 hrs into good English. How many years of German/French have you done to get to this level?