I think I quite enjoy essay writing. Though I may have romanticised it from my fleeting memories of putting in caffeine fueled all-nighters on deadline day while I was at uni. I’m trying to figure out what the difference is between essay writing and blogging (other than the finding reputable sources to cite bit).
Here is what I’ve come up with (not as a difference, but as a reflection on the art). I might be wrong. Feel free to crush my analogy in its infancy in the comments.
Essay writing is like finding threads of common quality from an array of garments, and tugging them out of those items in order to weave your own smaller and less significant rag.
Obviously you don’t damage the original in the process – unless you really go out of your way to discredit it.
I am enjoying the essay I’m writing for Bruce Winter’s Christ and the Clash of Cultures subject. Here is the question:
Citizens in the first century met in the context that declared who they were. Discuss the implications of this for the gatherings of the first Christians in the Roman East.
I’m sort of dancing around the question and trying to just write about the differences between the way the church ate together and the way pagan Rome ate at idol temples and banquets. I think I’ve jumped through enough logical hoops to synchronise the question with my topic.