Blog Review (3)

Not Quite Art, Not Quite Living uniquely dresses in art décor fashion while greeting each reader with London time in an oversized analog clock. But more important is the rich content found on Conrad Gempf’s blog as well as the thoughtful comments posted by his readers.

Conrad Gempf is a New Testament scholar, which seems somewhat paradoxiacal in the world of blogdomville, but this is the attraction of Conrad’s weblog. A biblical scholar and an author giving us daily glimpses into his quick, witty, and thoughtful mind. This is the weblog’s marquee. It may be that I’m not a scholar (and neither are writers of the blogs you visit) that draws and attracts me to make a daily return to this blog.

His postings range from “Culture, Church and Change” to “Jesus is my Winger” and everything in between; truly a smorgasbord of humor and intelligence cramed into the daily thoughts of it’s “not quite art, but neither is it quite living.” But from a regular visitors perspective it sure is fun and informing.

There is no Bio for Conrad on his weblog but if you dig deep enough you’ll discover he is Webzine Editor and Lecturer in New Testament at the London School of Theology. Interestingly he was born and brought up just outside New York City. He read for his undergraduate and Master’s degrees while living near Boston, Massachusetts, moving to Scotland to do his PhD research at the University of Aberdeen under Howard Marshall. He then spent a post-doctoral year at Cambridge and Tyndale House before joining LBC in 1989.

Conrad’s first popular-level book, Jesus Asked, was released by Zondervan in 2003. John Ortberg called it “highly readable and sorely needed” while Brian McLaren hailed it as the “best book I've read on Jesus in years.” Conrad also wrote a commentary on Acts for the latest edition of IVP’s New Bible Commentary which replaced the earlier one of FF Bruce.

On my blog-o-meter “Not Quite Art, Not Quite Living” gets -*****stars