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!

I do hope that this year’s tote bags are as nice as the ones we got in Boston.

Saturday, November 21, 2009

9:00am to 11:30am

• Janelle Peters, “Reading the Corinthian Veils through Hijabs and Habits” in 21-115 Contextual Biblical Interpretation

1:00pm to 3:30pm

• Michael Joseph Brown, Panelist in 21-207 Book Review: Greg Carey, Sinners: Jesus and His Earliest Followers (Baylor University Press)
• Travis Bott, “Repetition and the Art of Resistance in Daniel 3” in 21-238 Wisdom and Apocalypticism in Early Judaism and Early Christianity

Sunday, November 22, 2009

9:00am to 11:30am

• Jacob L. Wright, “War and Children in the Ancient Near East” in 22-111 Children in the Biblical World
• Luke Timothy Johnson, Panelist in 22-115 Cross, Resurrection, and Diversity in Earliest Christianity
• Amy H. C. Robertson, “Ritual and Text, Ritual Through Text” in 22-140 Ritual in the Biblical World
• Kelly Murphy, “‘You Have Mocked Me and Told Me Lies’: Women, Direct Discourse, and the Book of Judges” in 22-145 Social Sciences and the Interpretation of the Hebrew Scriptures
• Brent A. Strawn, Presiding in 22-149 Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible

1:00pm to 3:30pm

• Janelle Peters, “Female Power in the Bath Motif in Ephesians and Contemporary Greco-Roman Aesthetics” in 22-213 Disputed Paulines
• David L. Petersen, “Prophetic Rhetoric and Exile” in 22-215 Exile (Forced Migrations) in Biblical Literature
• Ingrid Lilly, “Greek Ezekiel in Light of Second Maccabees and Jerusalem in the 2nd Century BCEin 22-217 Greek Bible
• Brent A. Strawn, Presiding in 22-221 Iconography and the Hebrew Bible
• Walter T. Wilson, “Inconspicuous Piety and Communal Differentiation in Matthew 6:1-6, 16-18” in 22-227 Matthew
• William K. Gilders, “Ancient Israelite Sacrifice as Symbolic Action: Some Theoretical Reflections” in 22-237 Sacrifice, Cult, and Atonement

4:00pm to 6:30pm

• Emmanuel Y. Lartey, Presiding in 22-303 African Association for the Study of Religion
• Dianne Stewart, “Invisible Institutions in African Christianity” in 22-303 African Association for the Study of Religion
• Vernon K. Robbins, Presiding in 22-342 Rhetoric and the New Testament

Monday, November 23, 2009

9:00am to 11:30am

• Thomas Fabisiak, “Hatred and the Critical Study of the Bible: Charles Dupuis” in 23-111 Bible and Cultural Studies
• Travis Bolt, Respondent [to F. Rachel Magdalene] in 23-114 Christian Theological Research Fellowship
• Eric D. Barreto, Panelist in 23-130 Latino/a and Latin American Biblical Interpretation
• Valerie Nicolet Anderson, “Reading and Writing as Practices for Embodying Ethos: Dialogue in Foucault and Paul” in 23-144 Rhetoric and the New Testament
• Ingrid Lilly, Panelist in 23-149 Things I Wish I Knew about Doing a Ph.D.
• Davis Hankins, “The Subject of Job 4-5” in 23-151 Wisdom in Israelite and Cognate Traditions

1:00pm to 3:30pm

• Joel M. LeMon, “The Ethics of the Psalms and the Problem of Violence” in 23-210 Book of Psalms
• Cameron B. R. Howard, “Achaemenid Hypertextuality and the Book of Chronicles” in 23-230 Orality, Textuality, and the Formation of the Hebrew Bible

4:00pm to 6:30pm

• Matthew J. Lynch, “Rethinking “Shame” Terminology in the Hebrew Bible” in 23-303 Biblical Lexicography
• William K. Gilders, Presiding in 23-334 Sacrifice, Cult, and Atonement
• Ingrid Lilly, “‘He Prophesies for Distant Times’: Textual Evidence for Prophetic Editing in Ezekiel 12:21-13:7” in 23-341 Theological Perspectives on the Book of Ezekiel

Tuesday, November 24, 2009

9:00am to 11:30am

• Eric D. Barreto, “Negotiating Identity: Timothy’s Disputed Ethnicity in Acts 16:1-5” in 24-106 Book of Acts
• Valerie Nicolet Anderson, “Agamben’s Messianic Vocation and Paul’s Concept of New Creation” in 24-123 Reading, Theory, and the Bible
• David Lambert, “Biblical Theology and the Problem of the Western Religious Lexicon” in 24-126 Theology of the Hebrew Scriptures

24-110 — Corpus Hellenisticum Novi Testamenti
11/24/2009
9:00 AM to 11:30 AM

Theme: Hans Dieter Betz’s Commentary on Galatians, 30 Years Later

Troy W. Martin, Saint Xavier University, Presiding
Udo Schnelle, Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg, Panelist (20 min)
Helmut Koester, Harvard University, Panelist (20 min)
Richard N. Longenecker, Wycliffe College, Panelist (20 min)
Margaret M. Mitchell, University of Chicago, Panelist (20 min)
Hans Dieter Betz, University of Chicago, Respondent (20 min)
Discussion (25 min)

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22-403 — New Testament Theology: Status and Prospects
11/22/2009
7:00 PM to 9:30 PM

Pheme Perkins, Boston College, Presiding
James D. G. Dunn, Durham University, Panelist (25 min)
Udo Schnelle, University of Halle, Panelist (25 min)
Frank J. Matera, Catholic University of America, Panelist (25 min)
Donald A. Carson, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, Panelist (25 min)

I had just posted on Betz’s Galatians commentary yesterday and was happy to find that there’s a session for it. This just further proves my point of how important the work is. The New Testament theology session is particularly appealing for me since I’ll be taking a seminar on the subject with Luke Johnson this fall. Given the cast of characters, let’s hope they put this session in a large room!