SBL 2009 in Retrospect

The Society of Biblical Literature annual meeting in New Orleans was excellent. It was my fifth consecutive SBL meeting and one of the best. The city of New Orleans turned out to be great location and it was good to spend some money at local shops and restaurants. One restaurant owner told us what a positive impact the conference attendees were making on the local businesses, so for that reason I didn’t mind spending a little extra on muffulettas and jambalaya.

I roomed in the Marriott with Pat and Kevin; it was nice to stay at the Marriott because it was one of the two main hotels and host to the book exhibit.

I also enjoyed a number of entertaining sessions and panel discussions, especially the following:

1. HarperOne sponsored a session with Michael White, Pamela Eisenbaum, Jonathan Reed, and Bart Ehrman. Rather than discussing his book Jesus, Interrupted, Ehrman indicted scholars and pastors for not making the findings of biblical scholarship accessible to greater public. If we were doing our jobs as scholars, he argued, a book such as his would have never been successful as a best seller.
2. New Testament Theology: Status and Prospects with James D. G. Dunn, Udo Schnelle, Frank Matera, and D. A. Carson. It ended up being mostly a critical review session of Schnelle’s recently translated Theology of the New Testament. I would have liked to have heard more on the prospects of NTT, but it was fun to see Dunn and Schnelle spar a little bit.
3. Pauline Soteriology Group: Review of Douglas Campbell, The Deliverance of God. This session featured papers by Michael Gorman, Doug Moo, Alan Torrance, and a response by Douglas Campbell. Both Tom Wright and Richard Hays asked questions from the audience. Thanks to Andy Rowell for uploading the audio here.
4. Corpus Hellenisticum Novi Testamenti Section: Hans Dieter Betz’s Commentary on Galatians, Thirty Years Later. Here, Helmut Koester, Udo Schnelle, Richard Longenecker, and Margaret Mitchell all read papers and Betz responded to them. Mitchell’s paper was clearly the best and hinted at new directions and uses of rhetoric in NT scholarship. Koester did (facetiously) encourage Betz to write a second edition, which Betz said he’d do if only he could have a thousand pages to interact with recent scholarship and another twenty years to do it. Betz also teased us with a forthcoming article on the rhetoric of retirement in Paul.

There were also a number of other papers worth mentioning, but I’ll refrain. I had a few good meetings as well. One meeting was the Student Advisory Group of SBL of which I’m the new Southeastern representative. We discussed future SAG sessions and regional meetings among other things. A large percentage of SBL members are students, and so it’s good to have group dedicated to the needs of students. Fellow bloggers Pat and Michael also serve as SAG members.

As for the book exhibit, I purchased the following:

1. The two-volume edition of Koehler & Baumgartner, The Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament (Brill, 2001), aka HALOT. Since I’m taking a Daniel seminar, I thought it wise to have a good Aramaic lexicon in addition to BDB and Holladay.
2. Douglas Campbell, The Deliverance of God (Eerdmans, 2009). It was much cheaper at SBL than at Amazon and it seems like it will continue to be an important volume for many years to come.
3. Joseph Fitzmyer, The Letter to Philemon (Anchor Yale Bible). Yale was selling books half off and plus they gave you a nice tote bag.

There were many other books that tempted me, but money was short this trip. It was great meeting other bloggers at both the bibliobloggers dinner (at Cafe Giovanni) and the Biblioblogs.com dinner (at the Deutsches Haus). I occasionally had my camera with me and so here are some photographs from the trip. Click on the image below to enlarge it.

A sign on a Canal-Street light post.	View of the river from our hotel room.
Another view from the hotel room.	View of the Casino at night.
Pat and Kevin: roommates.	Michael Bird in front of a sign for one of his fifteen new books for 2009.
Mike Bird and Jim West.	Michael Fox at the Biblioblogs.com dinner.
John Hobbins.	Bourbon Street.
Jazz band on Bourbon Street.	James McGrath on the piano.

Can’t wait till it will be here in Atlanta next year!