sentences:  While in seminary, he was encouraged to pursue his intellectual interests in the newly founded degree of Comparative Religious Studies at Harvard Divinity School.He received a Fulbright grant to study in Japan (1957-1959) and was awarded his doctorate from Harvard Divinity School with his thesis "Shinran’s Gospel of Pure Grace" in 1963.From 1959 to 1961, Bloom was proctor for Center for the Study of World Religions, Harvard Divinity School, and Teaching Fellow in History of Religion, Harvard Divinity School.