SBL New England Regional Meeting Highlights

This last Friday was the Society of Biblical Literature New England Regional Meeting.  I had a wonderful time taking in various lectures, but I thought that I would share a few highlights from the meeting.

The Morning Session:

I went to the session on Ritual and Sacrifice which was pretty interesting.  The highlight for me was Julie Faith Parker’s paper entitled Protein, Not Playmates: Child Cannibalism in 2 Kings 6:24-31.  Her paper wins my award for best title and she was definitely one of the best presenters of the day.  The paper dealt with the role of children and how they create a contextual background that frames the Elijah Cycle.  Julie is finishing up her dissertation at Yale under John Collins, and this paper comes from the fruit of her research.  I think her reading of the text should present a fascinating and fruitful approach to the biblical narrative.  I look forward to reading her finished dissertation, which she told me, will be done before the SBL national meeting this upcoming November.

Plenary Session I

John J Collins, Holmes Professor of Old Testament Criticism and Interpretation at Yale Divinity School, gave a paper on Early Judaism in Modern Scholarship.  While Inter-testamental Judaism is not really my area of interest.  The paper was both informative and enjoyable.  Ultimately Dr. Collins paper left me with more questions than answers, but I suppose that isn’t such a bad thing.  Among such questions is: how does one actually define the various streams of Judaism during this period.  Is there an orthodox strain that other strains can be judged against (I, like Dr. Collins, don’t think there is, but I need to think on this more).

Plenary Session II

Peter Machinist, Hancock Professor of Hebrew and Other Oriental Languages at Harvard University, gave a paper on Frank Moore Cross entitled The Contributions of Frank Moore Cross to Biblical and Ancient Near Eastern Studies.  I must confess I am only familiar with Frank Moore Cross’ work through footnotes and caricatures, so it was nice hearing about the man and his work from someone who was intimately connected with him.  During the comment, questions and answers time, we were treated to various personal anecdotes about this giant of Biblical studies.  Once the afternoon session concluded, I had an opportunity to speak with Dr. Machinist about Dr. Cross’ work, and where a beginning student, like me, should start their reading.  [He suggested that I start with reading Frank Moore Cross: Conversations With a Bible Scholar by Hershel Shanks].

The Afternoon Session:

The paper that I enjoyed the most from this section was presented by Keith Bodner and it was entitled The Literary Sophistication of the Deuteronomistic History.  I appreciated the point that he made about locations having a certain ideological currency within the biblical narratives.

Another highlight was the books!!! Zondervan, SBL, and Hendrickson were in attendance and offering a hefty discount for their wares (40 - 50% off list price).

I also got an opportunity to meet a several interesting people, including some GCTS students, various professors, and publishers.  All in all it was a wonderful day, but I am sure this experience will be nothing compared to the National meeting this November.

Explore posts in the same categories: SBL, lectures

Tags: Andover Newton Theological School, ASOR, Frank Moore Cross, Hendrickson, John Collins, Julie Parker, Keith Bodner, New England Regional Meeting, Peter Machinist, SBL, Zondervan

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