The T & T Clark Blog

Biblical Studies Summer conferences round up

This year we (the ‘we’ that is T&T Clark in all its corporate gloriousness) attended quite a lot of conferences in Biblical Studies.

The season kicked off with International SBL in St Andrews where, despite the gulls and surprising heat, it was great to catch up with people. I had a lovely lunch with our LHBOTS series editors (Andrew Mein and Claudia Camp), and enjoyed discussing a few potential and existing projects with Athalya Brenner, Katie Edwards (Sheffield), Todd Still and many more. It was a very busy conference, and sadly I missed a couple of people I’d really hoped to touch base with. But a great ISBL... my only gripe is that the table sizes were about half the size that SBL had told us they'd be, and the coffee wasn't in the same place as the book exhibit. Both these things are annoying, it's not cheap to attend these events.

SOTS was in Bangor this year, under the presidency of T&T Clark author Eryl Davies (The Immoral Bible, Biblical Criticism: A Guide for the Perplexed). My colleagues Caitlin and Matt attended, and whilst book sales were quite slow it was a good time to meet with our UK-based Old Testament/Hebrew Bible authors.

The IOSOT conference in Munich was nice, but extremely hot, and slightly unbearable accordingly. The ‘cultural’ programme was truly excellent, including a full Bavarian beerhall banquet provided by the Archbishop of Munich and Freising.

Needless to say, I enjoyed it tremendously. It was also good to catch up with Thomas Romer, to have our ICC board meeting, and to meet authors and potential authors from outside the UK.

Last week was the BNTC (British New Testament), back in St Andrew’s (indeed top St Andrew’s restaurant recommendations: Forgan’s and The Seafood Restaurant), and as it was a fairly quiet conference I was able to attend some papers. Chris Keith (author of ‘Jesus’ Literacy’ and co-editor of ‘Jesus, Criteria and the Demise of Authenticity’) gave a great ‘tour d’horizon’ of Social Memory theory, in which he debunked several myths, and outlined a strong case for why this area of theory is so fruitful in biblical studies at the moment – and why it will become more so. Chris addressed the criticisms that memory theory doesn’t add terribly much to historical critical method and that it can be used simply to vindicate the biblical account, and showed quite clearly that not only can it mean a great deal, and throw up a lot of important questions, but also that it is only mis-applications (or simplistic applications) of memory theory that function as uncritical means of accepting the biblical account.

I have to confess a personal fascination with this approach, so expect to see rather more on memory (and ancient media culture) from T&T Clark in the future.

I also attended a panel review of Francis Watson’s new book with Eerdmans (who can thank me later for the publicity) on Gospel writing. It was an interesting session, in which Watson wasn’t given an entirely easy ride. A particular criticism was that Watson dispenses with Q and then sees Thomas as a possible source for Luke and Matthew. This doesn’t really hold water for those who date T in its entirety as post Lk and Mt. Nevertheless it’s clear that Watson’s book is a major contribution (which I'd have loved to have published!). It would have been nice if Mark Goodacre had been there to join the discussion and to give his thoughts on both Thomas and Q, which formed a large part of the discussion. It was nice to see Helen Bond, Loveday Alexander, Chris Keith, James Crossley and several others in St Andrews. Similarly, I enjoyed discussing a potential new edition of ‘One Lord, One God’ with Larry Hurtado and catching up with John Lyons about our new Reception History monograph series (link to vol 1), Scriptural Traces, which publishes as a subseries of the Library of Biblical Studies. Proper website coming soon. I was very much hoping to catch up properly with Steve Walton (and a few others), but I didn’t get the chance to.

So a good summer of conferences and many more excellent and enjoyable conversations than mentioned above. Now I suppose I’d best get back to planning for SBLAAR.  

T&T Clark at the AAR and SBL Annual Meetings in San Francisco

T&T Clark will be showcasing new and recent titles in booth 718 at this year’s American Academy of Religion and Society of Biblical Literature Annual Meetings in San Francisco, CA, November 19-22. All books will be 35-50% off. Stop by, browse, buy, and chat with our friendly staff.

In our booth you’ll find the newest volumes in the Library of Hebrew Bible/Old Testament Studies and the Library of New Testament Studies series, Holy Misogyny by April DeConick, The Eucharistic Communion and the World by John Zizioulas, and the new paperback of Quest for the Living God by Elizabeth Johnson, among many others. We’ll also be running an amazing sale on our 31-volume set of the Church Dogmatics, perfect for your library.

We hope to see you there!

Kara Zavada
Head of US Marketing

LNTS & Fourth Gospel in First-Century Media Culture

Great to see this post from Chris Skinner on Thatcher/LeDonne volume on Fourth Gospel in First-Century Media Culture.

Thanks for this, Chris!

I'm really pleased and proud with and of the volumes coming out in LNTS at the moment, particularly the edited collections, which are really focused. The FS for Loveday Alexander - Reading Acts Today is a real state of the art of current acts scholarship. I've found that whilst some publishers are a bit scared of doing festschriften nowadays if it's a really focused project it can almost function as a reader, and sell and review really well.

We've also just published Chris L. Keith's new book on Jesus' Literacy. And some great revised dissertations have been coming through of late. We're only signing up about 8 dissertations a year in LNTS now and some of the really solid work we've had to turn down points to the quality of what's coming through. We're a bit strict on reducing word-count to ensure a thorough revision and to force people to reconceive the project as a book. It seems to be working really well.

If you've got a proposal for LNTS do send it on, or feel free to make an appointment to discuss it with me at SBL. Book soon to avoid disappointment, as my diary's over half-full already.

AAR/SBL at San Francisco

 

This year will see the happy re-unification of AAR and SBL at San Francisco. I am sure most of you have booked their tickets already - and so have we. If you are planning to attend either SBL or AAR and are presenting a paper, taking part in a panel, hosting a breakfast with the author session or anything else, please do drop us a note so that we can make sure to take enough copies of your book!

Thanks much!

Countdown to SBL, November 20-23, Atlanta, Georgia, booth 1301

Hello All - wanted to whet your appetite with some recent releases in our LHBOTS series (and get you to stop by our booth!):

September 2010:

- Ethical and Unethical in the Old Testament: God and Humans in Dialogue, edited by Katharine Dell

- Traditions at Odds: The Reception of the Pentateuch in Biblical and Second Temple Period Literature, by John H. Choi

October 2010:

- The Historian and the Bible: Essays in Honour of Lester L. Grabbe, edited by Philip R. Davies and Diana V. Edelman

- Land of our Fathers: The Roles of Ancestor Veneration in Biblical Land Claims, by Francesca Stavrakopoulou

Way down yonder in New Orleans: SBL

Just a quick note to say 'come and see us at SBL' we'll be a booth 300 and have some very exciting new books, electronic publications and new editions to show off.

If you'd like to speak to an editor then you'll need to hunt down either Katie Gallof (for JSOTS/LHBOTS) or me for everything else biblical studies related.

Hope to see you in New Orleans!

SBL

Just a quick shout-out to the blogosphere. I will be at SBL in New Orleans this year, so if any of you have book ideas you'd like to discuss do drop me a line to set up an appointment.

I'm particularly looking for ideas for coursebooks and introductory texts, but monographs are always good too!

Email me: dmattos 'at' continuumbooks.com

Off to New England for ETS and SBL!

Well, today we're packing up and seeking Providence... Rhode Island for the 60th gathering of the Evangelical Theological Society. A three hour train ride from our Manhattan office and we'll be there setting up our booth with plenty of books all at conference discounts.

Please come by to peruse our latest offerings as well as to learn more about the revised Church Dogmatics series. Your friendly Biblical Studies Acquisitions Editor (that's me) will be there and is more than happy to discuss any book ideas and/or receive proposals for consideration. I'll have access to email so if you'd like to set up a meeting, feel free to make contact.

On Friday, we'll be making our way up to Boston for SBL where we will have a booth full of discounted books. Our biblical studies editors have been filling their schedules with meetings, but there are still plenty of slots open to come talk about your book ideas. You can email either of our editors to make last minute arrangements or you can just drop by to catch us there and reserve a time.

Also, remember you can track us on Twitter through the whole conference. You can schedule a meeting that way, ask a question, or just say hi.

See you soon!

We survived ETS and AAR/SBL 2007!

WOW! We have finally returned from a great spree of conferencing. It was wonderful to see old friends and colleagues and to make some new ones. There was hardly a moment when people were not browsing the shelves and tables at the booth. We've got a few photos to put up when we have the chance. The entire T&T Clark team was very happy with the turnout and deem it a very successful AAR/SBL. We gave out our entire stock of T&T Clark totebags and most of our bookmarks advertising our blog.

For those of you who are curious about next year's split, we will certainly be at both conferences in Chicago and Boston so there is nothing to worry about. First, we still have to recover from THIS year!

We were also at the Evangelical Theological Society's annual conference right before AAR/SBL. This is our second year at this conference and we were very pleased with the turnout of people who came by our booth. Everyone was happy to see that we had plenty of Barth, Gunton, and Torrence books in stock.

If you discovered our blog at the conferences, welcome! Now that we're back in the office, we'll be sure to be posting a lot more frequently. We have a number of new releases to announce. Check back daily.

AAR fun...

In a cold, rainy London I have received wonderful news that AAR has been going splendidly. Tom, Haaris and Burke will certainly have a lot of blog posts to make following the trip. In the meantime, to whet your appetites, here is a photo montage showing the T&T Clark presence at the conference. Click for a pop up window with the full size image.