The conference season is over! Well, the conference season is over for me at least. So here's a diary of my conference activities.
[The stand at ISBL]
It all began with ISBL at King's, an excellently run conference for which T&T Clark sponsored some rather dashing t-shirts for the team of conference helpers. Thanks to Richard Burridge (Dean of King's for giving us that opportunity). I had lots of productive meetings - including one with Library of New Testament Series Editor Mark Goodacre. It was a time to reflect on the sign-ups in LNTS over the last year, which were divided in equal thirds between PhDs, strong and focussed edited collections, and books by established scholars. This is a really great mix to have. We have turned down some really solid work in the last year because we simply do not have space for it in the LNTS programme. So we must be doing something right! At ISBL I also had a great meeting with Andrew Mein and John Lyons which I hope will develop into something quite exciting - more details anon.
Next-up was SOTS, which was good fun as ever... particularly as it was joined with BAJS. I really enjoyed Joe Blenkinsopp's paper on 'Remembering Josiah'. David Gunn gave a tour de force on the 'Amazing Copperplate Bible' - plates from an 18th Century volume in which a German (or Swiss?) scientist uses the bible to explain science. It's interesting to have a snapshot of a time when science could take its lead from the bible - of course at the time there was no need to question the bible's account of things. Tessa Rajak (during the shared day with BAJS) gave an interesting paper on the vestments of the High Priest, but whilst we had manifold insights from Josephus and the Second Temple Period we needed more on the biblical side of things, I think. This was made very clear to me in a question from Margaret Barker. We had a nice visit to the KJV exhibition at the Bodleian Library, and from a publisher's perspective it was great to see the 'Wicked Bible', and edition printed in 1631 which contained the misprint 'Thou shalt commit adultery'. The publisher was fined £300 and deprived of his printer's licence.
After SOTS I had time for a little rest before heading off to SNTS at Bard College (Annandale-on-Hudson, NY). This was an awfully long way to go and unfortunately this was not a magnificently organised conference. I had a great little hotel off-site, and was grateful for it as most of the people staying on campus were very dissatisfied with their accommodation. I had good meetings with people and even
though the attendance was very low compared to other years it was a useful conference. We had a lovely conference dinner in a tent next to the Hudson River.
[The marquee in which we had dinner - SNTS]
The last conference of the year was BNTC in Nottingham. I rather enjoyed the Jimmy Dunn/Larry Hurtado show (a 'dialogue' on the veneration of Jesus and the 1st commandment - they seemed to agree). I was a bit surprised that Dunn used the expression 'we Christians' (or variances with that implication) several times in a room where many might not have identified themselves as such. Now I have no personal beef with that as I'm a rosary-carrying Roman Catholic, but I do think it served to 'unacademize' the discussion. The debate was at points also shifted away from what I thought would be a historical question about how Jesus was venerated by early Christians to one about how people should worship/understand Christ (and even understand the trinity) in a modern context. This really underlined how easy it is for the waters to be muddied between scholarship/criticism and something which serves an ideological agenda in this field (and this isn't just limited to scholars of faith - that ideology can be a secular one too). This can sometimes be in direct opposition to a scholar's ability to be critical, and independent. It's an issue that I can only see becoming more important and more contentious in years to come. Of course, as a publisher I have my own bias - usually based on what I think will sell!
[panel discussion about 'Jesus of Nazareth' by Maurice Casey, Eddie Adams speaking]
One scholar who does claim to be independent is Maurice Casey, and I think he probably has a better claim to such a title than most. It was great to see Maurice on the first night of the BNTC, but I was sad that he couldn't make it to the panel review of his 'Jesus of Nazareth' organised by James Crossley. The book created a great deal of discussion, and I particularly enjoyed Eddie Adams' comment that it; 'Easily takes its place alongside the most important historical Jesus volumes of the last century or so'. Maurice's book is to my mind the most exciting HJ volume for years precisely because whilst I doubt anyone can really claim 100% independence/lack of bias (indeed scholarship might get a bit boring if that were the case) he is not serving tired agendas but attempting an independent historical picture, or a picture which says as much as can be said from the sources available. I'm delighted that T&T Clark has been able to publish such a refreshing and important volume.
So a summer of interesting and stimulating conferences. Now I'm going to attempt to get through my emails before the circus that is SBL kicks in!
My spies tell me that some of the discussion following Casey's book review was a little bit rank. Upon Crossley's question about what do people mean by Jesus' "Jewishness", Tom Wright made the remark "Yes... especially in Palestine", which seemed a bit odd to me. Is Wright getting his "ontological" and "practicing" categories confused again?
BW16
http://bwsixteen.wordpress.com
Posted by: BW16 | September 05, 2011 at 08:01 PM
Thank you for your incisive review. It's always lovely to catch up with you at conferences and I appreciate your views very much.
signed, not one of the 'we'. I don't feel excluded - he's just a monkey in a cage and I am free! :)
Posted by: steph | September 05, 2011 at 08:17 PM
Nice review. Thanks for doing it.
Posted by: Terry | September 06, 2011 at 08:44 AM