DavidMM

As a current BU PhD student, I love Boston and take advantage of BTI extensively. I also know that HDS students don’t take advantage of BTI as much as BC and BU do, since we often take language courses at Harvard that aren’t offered elsewhere (especially Coptic). Through BTI, you can definitely take advantage of scholars like David Frankfurter at BU or people at BC. However, it’s worth considering the difficulty of getting from Harvard to the other side of the river (there’s no direct train and the buses are hit or miss) and the time it takes (I loose about 45 minutes to an hour in the commute between Harvard and BU). That being said, Yale is the place to go for New Testament, especially after they hired Laura Nasrallah away from Harvard and I hear rumors that they want to continue to build their department. Yale also might look more favorably on accepting PHD from their masters program, I’m not sure, but it’s worth considering Since you are only considering a masters at HDS, they still have great scholars, including Karen King, but I’d advise against considering Harvard for a PhD because a lot of their faculty are on the older side. There’s also definitely a difference of attitude and culture between YDS and HDS which is worth considering. If your working spouse can get a job in either city, rent in New Haven will be significantly cheaper than Boston and Cambridge. I think at the end of the day, you should look at the list of faculty at both school and see who is more interested in the fields you are.

I have a friend who was interviewed and accepted to BU religion already. I think that if you haven’t heard for the interview, the ship is probably sailed. BU School of theology might be different, I’m not sure.

Hi, I’ve taken courses at JTS and seriously considered applying there. Much of what has been said above is not true. JTS used to guarantee full funding for PhD students, but it looks like they now promise tuition remission and substantial merit based aid. That being said, If you are a competitive applicant, I’m sure they would make it a PhD there worth your time since they have the money for it through various fellowships and foundations. Coursework is in English, except for maybe modern Hebrew language courses, a standard practice at most instructions. Strong Hebrew is needed for admittance like ancient Greek and Latin are needed for early Christianity programs, but Aramaic would definitely depend on your chosen concentration. Like any other PhD, having modern French or German for reading would help, but are less importance for admittance. JTS is modeled on a Protestant seminary and getting a PhD there would be very similar to getting a PhD from Union Theological Seminary or BU school of theology. Primarily the institution focuses on ordaining and training conservative (denomination, not political ideology) rabbis and some of their classes reflect this, but even these rabbis are trained in academic biblical criticism and documentary hypothesis. Yes there is a religious bias, but there is as well at Notre Dame and other Christian schools. The PhD at JTS is not akin to a yeshiva program, where emphasis is on learning Talmud and other rabbinic texts with medieval and modern commentaries for practical religious matters. With concentrations in Hebrew bible, rabbinics, medieval, modern Jewish thought, pursuing a PhD here should be no different than learning Hebrew bible (if that is your interest), than at any Christian or secular university. A major perk of JTS is consortium agreements with a handful of top rate schools, including Columbia, Fordham, NYU, Princeton, PTS, Union theological seminary, University of Pennsylvania, Yale and Yeshica University. Let me reiterate, JTS’s PhD program bears little to no resemblance to a yeshiva, from the material studied to the approaches to the text.