From Babylon to Bethel: Critical scholarship — concise language — creative design.  

Dear visitor,                                                                                                                      

welcome to my website!                                                                                                   

On these websites I am offering you my copy-editing services and assistance in many tasks related to Hebrew Bible and Ancient Near Eastern Studies and the publication of scholarly books, such as literature research, compilation of bibliographies and indexes, proofreading, copy-editing, layout optimization, and to a certain extent, translation. For further details please click on the respective links or the "services" tab (with subsections) above.You will also find a survey of the most frequently provided services including a rough value guide under "prices".

Within the area of Biblical Studies, I have two big passions: one is teaching, and the other well-shaped scholarly books.
I have devoted quite some time in my life to one or both of them and would like to continue in the future to contribute to the communication of exegetical knowledge in one way or the other, if not both.

Although I am still working on my dissertation on queens and queen mothers in the ancient Near East and the Hebrew Bible as soon as possible, I have launched my services as copy-editor and freelance research assistant on September 26, 2011.

Additionally, I am still following the track of a regular academic career.
You will thus find not only service information and my contact data here, but also my CV, dissertation abstract, list of publications, syllabi, and other issues that could be of interest.If you are looking for a full-time research assistant or can offer me a position as assistant professor in Hebrew Bible/Old Testament Studies, please do not hesitate to contact me under the e-mail address or fax number given under "Contact Me" likewise! You may, of course, also use the feedback agent (limited to text-only messages).

My motto both as academic teacher and as copy-editor is: "From Babylon to Bethel!"
It highlights my passion for the communication of theological insights:
"Babylon" represents the starting point of my work: my passion for the ancient Near East, its languages and culture, but also the biblical image of language confusion as narrated in Gen 11:1-9.
"Bethel" represents not only the place so prominent in many biblical narrations such as the celestial ladder in Jacob's dream (Gen 28:12-22), thus a place of true divine revelation, but also the neighborhood of Bielefeld where "my" former institute is located alongside many charitable institutions. Although I have just moved from there back to the Rhine-Main area, my way of doing theology is still influenced by the spirit of the "Kirchliche Hochschule Bethel" (or the later "Protestant University Wuppertal/Bethel", respectively). Hence "Bethel" forms a point of arrival in a double sense: literally as the place that formed the center of my thinking for years until recently, metaphorically as the goal of successful communication between the Divine and the human which I pursue with my work.
Therefore the whole of my motto expresses my ambition to understand the Bible within its ancient Near Eastern context and my devotion to a successful communication of knowledge.

New Start - new name - same quality:

A few colleagues may have learnt about me and my services under the present name "academic-bible-services.de". However, this name does not attract too many customers in German-speaking countries and does not reveal the full range of editorial assistance I am offering in German. This is why I have decided to change my name simultaneously with the launch of my full services in September 2011. You will soon find my services under the name "TextTradition" and the websites www.textundtradition.de and www.textandtradition.eu. However, this website will remain in service for a while.

If you would like to know more about what I think, I would like to recommend you to click on the "Thoughts & Insights" tab. You will find my blog there (mostly in German, but English comments are welcome!) with posts on religion and belief on the one hand and occasional remarks on political life on the other. —

Please note: I had too little time to carry on with my blog in the past months, and too much SPAM was sent there. Hence I decided not to allow any direct comments any more. Commenting is not possible other than by sending me an e-mail (cf. "Contact, Impressum") and waiting for me to upload the comment. I apologize for this inconvenience.

Anyway, I would appreciate your feedback on my business idea beyond "classical" copy-editing: could you imagine hiring a German native speaker as a "research assistant on demand"? At which conditions? Can you imagine requesting other services related to biblical research that are not yet listed here? Please send me your comments via e-mail (cf. "Contact, Impressum"); you may expect a quick answer.

The change of GMX's "sitebuilder" - which helped me create this website - in December 2013 came in the wrong time for me, as it overlapped with my moving to the Rhine-Main area and my need to update a lot of information here. I apologize for wrong fonts and formats which have come to be by wrong interpretation of data when I moved the content from the old to this new homepage! I will fix the problem asap.