Press Release: Thomas Reaches Longtime Goal

PRAGUE, Czech Republic and CLAREMONT, California (Thomas Media) – Yesterday at approximately 8:15pm CET and 11:15am PST Matthew A. Thomas was congratulated by his dissertation committee for successfully defending his dissertation. With the successful defense, Matt now becomes a Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) in Hebrew Bible after almost 10 years in the doctoral program of the School of Religion of Claremont Graduate University (CGU, religion.cgu.edu).

The defense was conducted via internet video conference between the International Baptist Theological Seminary in Prague (www.ibts.cz), where Dr. Thomas is Associate Lecturer in Old Testament, and CGU, where his committee – Drs. Tammi J. Schneider, Marvin A. Sweeney, and Kristin De Troyer – were located. In the days leading up to the defense some tense moments came as the video conference proved unsuccessful during three separate tests. However, on the day of the defense, the connection worked smoothly with only the occasional dropped phrase of speech.

The new Dr. Thomas was greatly relieved by the outcome of the defense: "It went so much better than I expected that I know many people were praying and that God's presence was there with me. Thank you to all those who held me in their thoughts and prayers." He then said that he planned to take the rest of the week off and would probably only look at the few, minor revisions asked for by the committee next week.

The degree will be officially awarded by CGU on May 13, 2006, although Dr. Thomas will be unable to attend the ceremony. This has been a big year for the Thomas family as his wife recently completed her Masters degree in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages, and they are in the process of adopting a child in the Czech Republic and have their psychological evaluations just one week after Dr. Thomas's defense. Unconfirmed reports indicate that the outcome of the defense may have been leaked earlier, but these allegations are still under investigation.