A Testimonial by Nicholas Lammé, P.h.D Candidate at the University of Birmingham
In 2023, after graduating from Dallas Theological Seminary with a Masters of Sacred Theology in New Testament, I was blessed and honored to be accepted as one of four interns at CSNTM. I wasn’t a traditional student. I had attended seminary many years prior but went to DTS to further my education with the hope of doing doctoral studies.
Dan Wallace ended up being the main reader for my thesis. I wanted to tackle a topic in New Testament textual criticism, but had little background in it, and I was a student at the Houston campus, so I didn’t know the professors in Dallas. Dan took a chance on me at that time, even though I hadn’t been one of his students. A year-and-a-half later, I had completed my thesis and graduated. Just when I was wondering what to do and where do go next, I got a surprise invitation. I was invited to apply for an internship at CSNTM.
I really cannot overstate just how much this internship impacted me on a personal and academic level.
There are many gaps in any given academic program that an internship like that offered by CSNTM is ideal to fill.
As an intern at CSNTM, I benefitted from learning from experienced scholars, deepening my understanding of the manuscript tradition of the New Testament, learning how to work with manuscripts directly and digitally, and having the opportunity to explore and grow into my own interests as a young scholar.
CSNTM also provided numerous experiences for me, but one stands out. As an intern, CSNTM facilitated our attendance at two academic conferences at the Evangelical Theological Society and the Society of Biblical Literature annual meetings. Attending these conferences for the first time, meeting scholars who had only previously been entries in my bibliographies, and learning the importance of academic dialogue were invaluable and inspiring.
Not only this, but during my internship, we were privileged to participate in CSNTM’s biennial Text & Manuscript Conference where we met even more scholars and had the opportunity to share meals them and get to know them better. These interaction with established scholars in the field of New Testament textual criticism and manuscript studies from all over the world would not have been possible for me but for this internship.
The relationships and lessons learned during the internship continue with me today and I am a better researcher and scholar because of them.
Lastly, the internship was good preparation for starting PhD work.
Today, I am heading into my second year as a PhD candidate at the University of Birmingham, researching the manuscript tradition of the Greek New Testament.
My studies do not just benefit me as a scholar. They also benefit the Church.
I regularly employ what I have learned and the skills I have developed in teaching Sunday school, preaching sermons, answering questions, preparing lessons, and being able to speak to people about the reliability of their Bibles. I have begun teaching Greek for a seminary in Bogota, Colombia, and have the privilege of helping to train future pastors for Latin America and help already-serving pastors to learn to read their Greek New Testaments.
In the future, we want to return to Latin America to work in theological education to benefit pastors who never had the opportunity to study formally.
I regularly employ what I have learned and the skills I have developed in teaching Sunday school, preaching sermons, answering questions, preparing lessons, and being able to speak to people about the reliability of their Bibles. I have begun teaching Greek for a seminary in Bogota, Colombia, and have the privilege of helping to train future pastors for Latin America and help already-serving pastors to learn to read their Greek New Testaments.
In the future, we want to return to Latin America to work in theological education to benefit pastors who never had the opportunity to study formally.
(Pictured: Nicholas leading our 2024-2025 intern cohort through a seminar on the Coherence-Based Genealogical Method (CBGM))
CSNTM’s internship program has been a significant part of this journey. I am grateful to God for Dan Wallace, who took a chance on a non-traditional student and an unknown quantity, and for his mentorship, friendship and support, not only during the internship, but even all these years after it. And I am grateful for Denis Salgado, Mark Gaither, Pete Forde and the entire staff at CSNTM that make the internship program so special and rewarding.
I am also so grateful for all those, whose faces I’ve never seen and whose names I don’t know, who generously donated to CSNTM so that I could have these experiences. I am the beneficiary of that generosity and by God’s grace, I trust that what was invested in me will continue to bear fruit for many years to come.