Didn't we have a loverly time the day we went to Bangor... for BNTC

Last week Anna and I went to Bangor University, for the British New Testament Conference which was celebrating its 30th anniversary.

I must say that I had not been relishing the three and a half hour train journey, and was particularly grumpy about having to change trains. However, the last part of the journey, along the north coast of Wales was beautiful, with castles and bays, and boats and in the end I rather enjoyed it. There was also the fact that the 1979 hit by Fiddler's Dram, 'Didn't We Have a Lovely Time the Day We Went to Bangor' was on loop in my mind for the whole time. Hear it here, on youtube. Wikipedia tells me it was actually inspired by a day-trip to Rhyl, and Bangor got the free publicity simply because its name has two syllables. The Rhyl council got very upset about this. So, I take pity on them by posting the following link.

We were also blessed with delightful weather, which made a few hours of sight-seeing very pleasurable. We visited Bangor Cathedral (founded by St Deiniol in 525 - well before Canterbury), and I was delighted to see that various chairs, benches, screens etc were carved by Robert 'Mouseman' Thompson, and bore his distinctive mouse trademark. We then made a trip to Bangor Pier (one of the longest in the UK at 497 metres!) and had an ice-cream, before heading back to the conference.

The conference itself was particularly well run, and very enjoyable. It was a little poignant as the department at Bangor is closing and many of the staff moving down to form, with Lampeter, what will be known as University of Wales, Trinity St David. In many ways this seems like a very sensible and positive move - creating a strong and dynamic department. But in others it makes one worry about the fact that there are far fewer departments in this field than there used to be.

The papers I attended were all good fun, particularly the 'Debate on Q' between an absent Francis Watson (using his avatar of Simon Gathercole) and Christopher Tuckett.

We had good book sales, particularly of Ecological Hermeneutics  and of our new Guide for the Perplexed on the New Testament and Jewish Law, by James Crossley. See previews below.

There was also much interest in Maurice Casey's forthcoming masterpiece. 'Jesus of Nazareth', which will be out in October.