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Here is my handout for my paper at this year's SBL Annual Meeting:

Dating the crucial sources in early Christianity (Handout)

Labels: SBL Boston

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A couple of years ago, I wrote a post on Surviving SBL. It was in response to a request from Sean Winter who was, at that time, a newcomer to the meeting. This year I have had a couple more requests for my own tips about surviving the meeting, so I thought I would revisit and revise the original post, but now under the heading "enjoying" rather than "surviving" SBL. I am one of those for whom SBL is both duty and joy.

(1) Beer and Good Company: Find people you like spending time with (and who like spending time with you, I suppose!) and your experience will be ten times more enjoyable than otherwise. I have heard some people say that they find the SBL a bit of a maze and rather overwhelming. I have never found that, and perhaps because I have been lucky enough to spend time with people whose company I greatly enjoy. The intellectual stimulation will often come more from those small gatherings with friends over a beer than it will at the sessions.

(2) Choose Sessions Carefully: Don't be over ambitious about how many sessions you can get to. I used to treat the SBL a bit like the way I used to treat the Christmas Radio Times and TV Times when I was a child. I used to fill every moment in the day with telly, allowing just little slots for five or ten minute "breaks" in viewing. SBL sessions, though sometimes enjoyable, are no Christmas TV, and you can get conferenced out.

(3) Be a Tart: Don't feel obliged to stay for the whole of each two-and-a-half hour session that you go to. Several times I've got stuck in the world's most boring papers by accident because I was interested in the paper just before it or just after it. Once, I attended a paper in a packed room, over 100 or so in the audience, but I did not make a sharp enough exit when it had finished. I got stuck listening to the next paper with four other people and felt so sorry for the guy presenting that I felt obliged to stay and feign interest. Unlike the British New Testament Conference, where one is encouraged to be loyal to one seminar throughout the conference, you are allowed to be a complete tart at the SBL.

(4) Burning the Candle at Both Ends: Try not to burn the candle at both ends, socializing until late and then getting up before the crack of dawn for a breakfast meeting. I am talking to myself here. I walk round the SBL perpetually exhausted because I don't have the discipline to go to bed early when I have to be up early. Every year I tell myself not to arrange breakfast meetings, or get invited to them; every year I end up with breakfast meetings each day. I've done it again. Bummer.

(5) Budget beating breakfast buffets: To develop some advice from an older blog post, here's a tip for those at SBL on a budget: get to one of those great American breakfast buffets and eat to your heart's content. Don't be put off by earnest looking professor types who only visit the buffet once. Keep going for as long as you can. Eat so much that you won't want lunch. You can then make it through to the evening when you'll be just peckish enough to enjoy something else. In fact you might even be invited to one of those evening receptions where there is a lot of food. On days like that, you have only had to buy breakfast and the budget is looking healthier than it might have been.

Birmingham never gave me enough to travel, and so troughing my face at breakfast was my standard survival strategy. And the American breakfast buffets are great, though for Brits it can be a little off-putting to see Americans putting their fruit on the same plate as their sausage and bacon, or worse, putting corn syrup on their scrambled egg. So Brits abroad may need to avert their eyes. There is also an unappetizing pastey coloured concoction called "grits", which is to be avoided.

(6) Getting to Receptions: Receptions are a great way of meeting people, and can be fun. They are held by publishers, universities and others and are often generous in their invitations, and it is good, once again, to be a tart. There are signs, though, that the seven years of plenty may be coming to an end. This is the first SBL meeting since the split with AAR, the credit crunch is biting and universities and publishers are all feeling the squeeze. Several publishers no longer hold receptions and several universities have pulled the plug too. My guess is that there we will some cash bars instead of free bars, and less food at the receptions that remain.

(7) Presenting Papers: Regular readers will know that I have outspoken views on this topic, but I continue to be amazed by the lack of investment that many make in presenting their papers. The gist of my concern is this: far too many people simply read their paper out verbatim at SBL sessions in the most inarticulate way imaginable, often with no attempt to communicating with the audience. A particular problem is speed-reading. People write their fifteen page screed and have a bloody-minded determination to read through the whole lot if it kills them, whether or not it fits into the time. This is a particular problem with graduate student papers, and it is related to nerves. My advice: practise your paper beforehand and think about issues like pausing, breathing, adding light and shade and varying your intonation. I never cease to be amazed, though, to see seasoned scholars completely unable to time a paper, selfishly praying on the good will of the chair and the other presenters. This is really elementary stuff -- overrunning on a paper is egotistical and unprofessional. If you are chairing a session, be ruthless -- the presenter who is unable to time their own paper does not deserve your compassion. I feel like having a longer rant on this, but perhaps I'll save it for my conference thoughts.

(8) Seeing the city: It is very easy to spend several days in a city and not see the city. It's really worth taking some time out to see the city, especially a city as fine as Boston. Too many of my SBL memories merge into one because I spent 95% of my time on the inside of hotels and convention centres. Actually, my hope this year is that I might bump into Doctor Who. Meeting in the same city and at the same time this year is the New England Fan Experience, at which Peter Davison (the fifth doctor) is a special guest. It would make my day to meet him.

Labels: SBL, SBL Boston

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Mikeal Parsons asked me to post this announcement here, and I am happy to do so. It is also available as a Word document here.

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Baylor University is proud to announce the appointment of Dr. Bruce Longenecker to the W. W. Melton Chair in the Department of Religion. Dr. Longenecker currently serves as a Senior Lecturer in New Testament Studies at St. Mary’s College, University of St. Andrews, Scotland. He received his B.A. degree from Wheaton College, M.Rel. from Wycliffe College, University of Toronto, and Ph.D. in Theology from the University of Durham, England. Prior to teaching at St. Andrews, Dr. Longenecker taught at Cranmer Hall with St. John’s College in Durham, England, and in the Faculty of Divinity, the University of Cambridge, England. He is the author or editor of eight books and numerous scholarly articles.

Dr. Bill Bellinger, chair of Baylor’s Religion Department, said, “We are delighted to have Dr. Bruce Longenecker join our faculty. He is a devoted churchman, an accomplished scholar, and a seasoned teacher, and he is a wonderful addition to our department as we seek to fulfill the University’s vision of excellence in teaching and scholarship.” Interim Baylor President, David Garland likewise praised the appointment, “I have long admired Dr. Bruce Longenecker’s scholarship in the service of the church. He is the embodiment of Baylor’s twin commitments to the life of the mind and the life of faith, and we are very pleased to welcome him to the Baylor family.” About his election to the Baylor Faculty, Dr. Longenecker commented: “It is a privilege to be joining the Baylor team. Baylor University has won international respect for its distinguished upward trajectory, placing academic excellence at the heart of a holistic Christian liberal arts program. I look forward to the dynamic exchange of ideas that Baylor cultivates, and my family and I are eager to become actively involved in the wider Waco community.”

Distinguished colleagues in the field of New Testament scholarship have lauded the appointment. “Dr. Longenecker is an increasingly visible figure in the field of international New Testament scholarship. He will bring significant strengths to Baylor’s already excellent faculty,” commented Dr. Richard Hays, George Washington Ivey Professor of New Testament at Duke Divinity School. Dr. Beverly Gaventa, Helen H.P. Manson Professor of New Testament Literature and Exegesis at Princeton Theological Seminary, agreed: “Bruce Longenecker will be a genuine asset to Baylor’s already strong program. This is a splendid appointment for Baylor, both at the undergraduate and graduate level.” Dr. James D.G. Dunn, Emeritus Lightfoot Professor of Divinity, University of Durham said, “Dr. Longenecker’s research and publication record over the past few years can match any other in his field of whatever rank and experience. Given his growing range of mastery in several New Testament fields his appeal to would-be postgraduates and at the international level is bound to increase.” Dr. Markus Bockmuehl, Professor of Biblical and Early Christian Studies at Oxford University, observed: “Much as he will undoubtedly be missed in the UK, for Baylor to appoint Bruce Longenecker to a senior chair is a timely challenge and opportunity for him, and will clearly be seen as an appropriate recognition of his gifts by colleagues on both sides of the Atlantic.”

Dr. Longenecker is married to Fiona Bond, a graduate of the University of Durham, who has distinguished herself in strategic management of non-profit ventures (educational, artistic, religious, social and governmental). They have two sons: Callum (7) and Torrin (4). Dr. Longenecker will join the faculty in the Fall, 2009.

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In recent years, UK travellers in the US have had a good time of it. The pound has been strong, and the considerable expense of attending the SBL has been reduced by the fact that buying books and eating out have seemed relatively cheap. This time last year, the pound was at historic highs against the dollar (£1 = $2.08 at the beginning of November 2007). Now it is at a six-year low, currently $1.469. The calculations for Brits abroad will be a little different this time round -- no more simple halving of the price to get the pound equivalent. Meanwhile, for those of us now drawing a salary in dollars, trips to the UK start getting much cheaper, and this Christmas we might be able to afford a couple of extra glasses of sherry.

Labels: SBL Boston

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N. T. Wrong has posted on the Relative Unimportance of Oral Culture for Interpreting Biblical Books, reminding us of the fact that "Of those who wrote biblical books, the literacy rate was 100%". With the antibishop (thanks to Andrew Criddle for the term), there is always an enjoyable element of facetiousness, but his reminder about this blindingly obvious fact is actually a useful one because it forces us to think again about the role of the literate in a culture where there was widespread illiteracy, to come to terms with the role played by this elite. As Harry Gamble says,

In a community in which texts had a constitutive importance and only a few people were literate, it was inevitable that those who were able to explicate texts would acquire authority for that reason alone (Books and Readers, 9-10).

Moreover, as I have argued here (Orality and Literacy V: Illiterate Tradents), it is not just a question of taking literate authors of literary texts seriously. It is also a question of focusing on literate tradents. The idea of illiterate early Christian tradents remains problematic. Most of the tradents we know about were literate, and one of the earliest pieces of known tradition (1 Cor. 15.3-5) presupposes literate tradents and the importance of tradition interacting with what is written.

Now in that post, I did promise a note on Acts 4.13, where Peter and John are described as ἀγράμματοι, sometimes translated as "illiterate". Many commentators suggest that the word is more appropriately translated "uneducated" than "illiterate", not least because the same text, Acts, depicts Peter as quoting extensively, verbatim, from the Hebrew Bible (or perhaps more accurately here in Acts, the Septuagint). I make no presumption of historicity since it seems likely that Luke has composed those speeches; the point is that the author who depicts Peter and John as ἀγράμματοι in the same text also has them quoting their Scriptures verbatim. Therefore the likely meaning of the word, as Luke uses it, is "uneducated" and not "illiterate", and this verse does not provide a one-stop response to arguments in favour of the likelihood of literate tradents.

Labels: orality and literacy

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In a recent post, the ever intriguing N. T. Wrong discusses the Scholarly Dating of Daniel to After the "Prophecies" were "Fulfilled". Here in the biblioblogging community, we are all on first name terms, so I hope the bishop will not mind my calling him Tom. Tom quotes and then argues against a character who sees "The practice of late-dating the books of the Bible . . . as a position of faith on the part of those scholars who do so"; Tom pays special attention to John J. Collins on Daniel, and the quotation is worth repeating here:

The issue is not whether a divinely inspired prophet could have foretold the events which took place under Antiochus Epiphanes 400 years before. The question is whether this possibility carries any probability: is it the most satisfactory way to explain what we find in Daniel? Modern critical scholarship has held that it is not.
- John J. Collins, Daniel, First Maccabees, Second Maccabees, with an Excursus on the Apocalyptic Genre (Wilmington: Michael Glazier, 1981): 11-12.

Tom's timely post coheres with what I have been arguing here (especially in Dating Game VI and Dating Game VII) with reference to the predictions of the temple's destruction in the Gospels. Allow me to quote from a section of my forthcoming SBL paper (31-32 in the current draft):

One of the standard arguments against the idea that Mark shows knowledge of the destruction of Jerusalem is the reassertion of the text’s own character here as prediction. In his Introduction to the New Testament, David A. DeSilva suggests that “The primary reason many scholars tend to date Mark’s Gospel after 70 CE is the presupposition that Jesus could not foresee the destruction of Jerusalem – an ideological conviction clearly not shared by all.” But this kind of appeal, while popular, tends not to take seriously the literary function of predictions in narrative texts like Mark. Successful predictions play a major role in the narrative, reinforcing the authority of the one making the prediction and confirming the accuracy of the text’s theological view. It is like reading Jeremiah. It works because the reader knows that the prophecies of doom turned out to be correct. It is about “when prophecy succeeds”.

My concern about the popular appeal to what Jesus could or could not have done is that it does not take seriously the real issue, which has nothing to do with making a judgement about the historical Jesus. Rather, it is about observing the literary function of successful prophecy in the narrative in which it appears. The prediction only gains traction because the reader is saying, "Hey, yes! I know what that's about!" The issue is parallel to the one discussed here by Tom Wrong, and I am grateful to have his Daniel discussion to inform my own. James McGrath weighs in on Exploring our Matrix, with similarly helpful observations.

Labels: Dating

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Tomorrow's Times has an obituary of a renowned classical scholar whose works will be familiar to many:

Professor Frank Walbank: historian of classical antiquity

. . . . Throughout his life the bulk of this activity was devoted to the history and historiography of the post-Alexander period of ancient Greek history. By 1930 the publication of newly found inscriptions and papyri was transforming access to a period which had suffered from comparison with the Golden Age of 5th and 4th-century BC Greece; Walbank was among the first to see and seize the opportunity. The history came first, with biographies of two first-rank figures, Aratos of Sicyon (1933) and King Philip V of Macedon (1940). Lucid, comprehensive and judicious, they became and remain standard works of reference.

Behind them, however, lay the historian Polybius, whose surviving text, still substantial though a pitiful torso of the original 40 books, had had no commentary since the 1790s. From 1942 onwards Walbank set himself to fill that gap. Vol I, covering the fully extant books I-VI, came out in 1957, II in 1967 and III in 1979. Within that invaluable, peculiarly Anglo-Saxon genre of detailed “historical commentary” on ancient historical texts, they are reckoned to have set the gold standard: his appreciation of Johann Schweighauser’s 18th-century edition — “the more one works with this, the more one comes to admire its thoroughness and sound common sense” — applies with equal force to his own . . .

Walbank died on 23 October this year, aged 98.

Labels: obituaries

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My colleague in the Graduate Program in Religion at Duke, Ellen Davis, appears on Duke Today to talk about The Green Bible:

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Just spotted this on archive.org and it may be of interest to some:

C. H. Dodd, The Johannine Epistles (London: Harper and Row, 1946)

Labels: archive.org

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