Thoughts on Antiquity

I’m back from the SBL conference in San Diego. I actually landed here in Memphis a while ago, but I’ve been too exhausted to blog until now.

Since it was my first time at the SBL, I often got remarks such as “was it overwhelming” or “were you too star-struck to talk to so-and-so”. I must say, the whole thing was rather exhilarating. The sheer number of Biblical scholars, many of them giants in their field, was not overwhelming at all - on the opposite, it was thrilling, especially by the fact that I finally was in their presence.

I will admit that I was a bit too star-struck at first to go up to Amy-Jill Levine, of whom I’m a huge personal fan, but that subsided as I met many of whom I admire there. I mean, how often can you go up in a coffee shop and shake the most recognizable Dead Sea Scroll archaeologist and tell her that you admire what she’s doing? Perhaps if you worked with her, I suppose.

In addition, it was delightful meeting all the different Bibliobloggers and e-listers. There were about a dozen of us for the e-listers picture and lunch afterwards, and almost twice that many at the Bibliobloggers’ lunch. It was a real pleasure to put faces, rather to meet the real person behind the online persona. And despite what Chris Tilling says about Jim West, he really is a “nice guy”. No, no, I kid, I kid. Everyone was very nice and polite. We had, well, at least on my end of the table, great conversation, and I was pleasantly surprised to learn that this blog is actually read. I present my name, and I get, “Oh yes, I recognize the name.” I do not care how many times you hear it - it’s still a warm, comforting feeling to know that someone is crazy enough to read my blog.

I enjoyed the sessions too. Coming in Friday afternoon, I caught some of the πιστις χριστου debate. I eagerly attended the various Matthew and Jewish-Christian (or should that be Christian Jew? Or Christ-believing Judean??) papers. The one on Saturday morning had a very helpful section on terminology and methodology, both of which I still think need more work in that area. And Daniel M. Gurtner’s paper “The Death of Jesus in Matthew’s Gospel” on Matthew that evening gave me renewed vigor to complete my own paper on Matthew. To those that read the original draft, it now is a far different beast. But this paper verified that I was indeed on the right track.

One session I really would have liked to sit all the way through was the Synoptic Gospel section focused on Bauckham. I left right before James Crossley’s paper, though speaking with him afterwards, I really regret doing so. I did that though, just to see Jodi Magness’ presentation on Qumran and Essenes, following whom Steve Mason utterly demolished (in my opinion) the panelists’ use of Josephus to make an Essene-Qumran-DSS connection. There Steve Mason left no stone unturned, as the cliché goes, in ravaging their arguments. Dead on, too, in my humble opinion. Even so, I was far too embarrassed to admit so when I shook her hand. I mean, after all, I am not qualified to pronounce victory one way or another. I have my personal judgments, even if they are reasonably informed, but here I must follow Duane Smith, who really is great conversation, and warn my readers, whoever they may be, that in no way am I to be considered anything of an expert, and though I try to back up my opinions with facts, it might not be wise to listen to me. (That’s my caveat lector.)

But this leads me to another session I attended – very briefly, if only at first to meet with Ross Kraemer, I caught a bit of the debate about sensationalism and what scholars need to do to combat the consumer-driven nature of the sensationalist media. The panel included Jodi Magness, Ross Kraemer, Jonathan Reed, John Dart, and Eric Meyers. A very informative session, one which I hope genuine action comes out of. I was enthusiastic about several suggestions that SBL may adopt, and so I’ll likely be blogging on that as it unfolds.

The highlight, apart from the Biblioblog meeting, has to be the huge conglomeration of publishers and book sellers. I managed to grab a couple of good titles, but spent a good portion of time just browsing the stalls. There’re so many books! It’s literally hell – all those books, and I can’t have them all! How dare they tempt me!

Finally, I want to thank J. B. Hood for rooming with me and generally keeping me knowledgeable on the happenings; to Jeffrey Gibson for the great conversation among much else, to Chris Zeichmann for the company and intelligent mind, and James Crossley for knowing how to get wild.

More to come soon…