Saturday, September 06, 2003
More on the British NT Conference
The conference finished at lunch time today, though for us local organisers the tidy-up and sort-out continued for still longer, though happily not so long that we missed the England match. It's difficult to judge when you're the host, but it seemed all to go off well. But I was only as far as Friday lunchtime in my narrative and I am unlikely to have time to finish that narrative for a while yet, so you'll have to be patient. Perhaps I could leap forward in the mean time to this morning; the third sesssions of each of the ten seminars. The one I attended this year was Synoptics and we had Prof. Larry Hurtado of Edinburgh University talking about the women at the end of Mark, especailly Mark 16. A cracking paper, arguing -- among other things -- that we should not see a contrast between 16.7 and 16.8 -- Mark doesn't use alla or de. And the fact that the women tell no-one because they were afraid really means they told no-one else because they were afraid, i.e. they fulfilled their commission to speak to the inner group (Peter & the others) and appropriately for the time did not speak in public to others. First century readers, according to Hurtado, would have picked up that the women had behaved appropriately and they would not have seen 16.1-8 as about their failure in any way. One interesting parallel -- Mark 1.40-45, Leper, Go show yourself to the priest and tell no-one . . . -- effectively this means tell no-one else. This is a very inadequate sketch of only some elements in an interesting paper, but I'm looking forward to hearing more in due course when it's published. There were at least a couple of plugs during his talk for his new book Lord Jesus Christ, on which more anon.
British New Testament Conference Day 2
Friday is the longest day of the British New Testament Conference and it was even longer for me and the local organisers. I've managed to find ten minutes spare to blog and that won't be enough to chat about yesterday's events, so I'll resume later. The really happy news of the day for us on the local side was the arrival of Continuum's lost twelve boxes of books. It seemed that, after all, they had never even been delivered anywhere, let alone to Mason Hall where the conference was being held. Big relief when the van rolled up. Nice plus for me: the first box that was opened had The Case Against Q sitting at the top! Interesting side note about the Continuum display: this now incorported Trinity Press International publications as well as Sheffield Academic Press and T & T Clarke. So the back-catalogue alone is enormous. As you may have heard, there is to be one Biblical Studies related imprint from Continuum in the future called T & T Clarke International, so Trinity & Sheffield dissolve into that.
That aside, it was also a pleasure for me to attend Helen Bond's presentation in the Synoptic's seminar first thing in the morning, indeed to be asked to chair it. She spoke with admirable clarity on "The Disappearance of Caiaphas" in Mark (sorry don't have time to look up the exact title), a chapter from a forthcoming full-book length treatment of the figure of Caiaphas in history and tradition, a kind of sequel to her fine book on Pontius Pilate. In this paper she was reflecting on why Caiaphas is not actually named in Mark's Gospel (in contrast to Matthew, Luke and John). Her thesis was that this was not accidental nor was it because Mark didn't know his name nor was it because of the date of composition of the Passion Narrative or its source but it was Mark's intentional literary strategy to draw attention to "the High Priest" as opponent, as leader, so lining him up with other such anonymous Jewish leaders in the Gospel. That summary, of course, doesn't do justice to the thesis as presented, but it was good stuff.
The second session of the Synoptics Seminar was Rob Bewley, who presented his work on dialogue in Mark's Gospel, a narrative-critical study with a lucid and useful introduction to the discipline of narrative-criticism before he gave us what he called "free samples" of his analysis of the Markan dialogues.
My time's up for now. Later I'll tell you about the Birmingham textual critics' presentation in the evening, and some more I hope from other parts of the conference. Right now it's the prayers, this morning led by my colleague here in Birmingham Philip Seddon. Apparently 50 attended prayers yesterday morning, so it's clearly a popular part of the conference.
That aside, it was also a pleasure for me to attend Helen Bond's presentation in the Synoptic's seminar first thing in the morning, indeed to be asked to chair it. She spoke with admirable clarity on "The Disappearance of Caiaphas" in Mark (sorry don't have time to look up the exact title), a chapter from a forthcoming full-book length treatment of the figure of Caiaphas in history and tradition, a kind of sequel to her fine book on Pontius Pilate. In this paper she was reflecting on why Caiaphas is not actually named in Mark's Gospel (in contrast to Matthew, Luke and John). Her thesis was that this was not accidental nor was it because Mark didn't know his name nor was it because of the date of composition of the Passion Narrative or its source but it was Mark's intentional literary strategy to draw attention to "the High Priest" as opponent, as leader, so lining him up with other such anonymous Jewish leaders in the Gospel. That summary, of course, doesn't do justice to the thesis as presented, but it was good stuff.
The second session of the Synoptics Seminar was Rob Bewley, who presented his work on dialogue in Mark's Gospel, a narrative-critical study with a lucid and useful introduction to the discipline of narrative-criticism before he gave us what he called "free samples" of his analysis of the Markan dialogues.
My time's up for now. Later I'll tell you about the Birmingham textual critics' presentation in the evening, and some more I hope from other parts of the conference. Right now it's the prayers, this morning led by my colleague here in Birmingham Philip Seddon. Apparently 50 attended prayers yesterday morning, so it's clearly a popular part of the conference.
Friday, September 05, 2003
British New Testament Conference Day 1
The conference is underway successfully here in Birmingham. It was utterly hectic for me and the local team yesterday. Note to myself for future reference: don't organise a conference again until this one is a distant memory. Further note to myself: in future avoid doing anything as bonkers as hosting a conference at the same time as being secretary of the society. I've found time to blog while my printer whirs away printing out last minute versions of papers for speakers, hand-outs for speakers and so on. The only conference item at the moment going on is Prayers, led my former colleague Dr Darrell Hannah. I'm afraid I've never yet been to the Prayers at a British NT Conference; some might think it an odd tradition for an academic conference to have prayers scheduled at the beginning of each day; but my guess would be that the vast majority of the delegates are Christians of one sort or another, and it has been a tradition of the society always to have 30 mins. prayers in the morning. I suppose my own inability to attend has usually been more to do with the luxury of being able to lie in and not having to get the kids up for nursery, school etc. than it has with anything else, if I am honest.
Anyway the main event yesterday was the eagerly awaited paper from Professor Ulrich Luz. His title was Myth and Christology in the New Testament. I wish I were able to write a decent precis of the paper here but I cannot. I did sit and listen as intently as I could all the way through it (i.e. I didn't fall asleep as I almost always do in conference papers, regardless of the actual quality) and I kept catching all sorts of interesting bits and bobs. And there were many points at which those sitting around me hummed with approval. Jimmy Dunn asked the first question (well, three questions; John Riches' -- in the chair -- attempted to stifle the third because of time constraints but unsuccessfully) and, if I remember correctly, he said the paper provided a "fascinating and brilliant sketch". Lots of the paper was about "Myth" and appropriate definitions of this; lots of it was about the centrality of the "Christ Myth" in early Christianity. Luz dwelt for some time too on how extraordinarily early Jesus was worshipped as God, using the term "Christological monotheism" a good number of times, a term I know from Bauckham though Bauckham was not mentioned. Luz talked about 1 Cor. 8.5-6 and Paul's redefinition of the Shema. He talked a good deal about the Gospels. He was firm that the old-fashioned view that the deification of Jesus came in as a result of Hellenisation was nonsense. I remember him commenting at this point that the Jewish Matthew's Christology was very high while the more hellenised Luke's Christology was much lower. He must have mentioned Gerd Theissen's work ten or more times -- he was clearly highly influential in his thinking. It emerged very clearly in the question time that this paper was the beginning of a major project; it was delightful to hear the humility of such a fine scholar's answers to his questioners, often simply to defer to the future working out of his grand project. He clearly sees the project as intersecting theology and religious studies; he ended by bemoaning the traditional separation of the theology of the New Testament from the history of early Christianity. Alas, my problem was that I was simply so fatigued from running around all day trying to sort out problems (e.g. 12 boxes of books from Continuum have simply not turned up. It seems clear that securicor delivered them somewhere, but they did not deliver them here. Why does it have to be my publisher whose books go missing? Let's hope our efforts to track them down today come off) that I was just not able to concentrate on the whole paper. So it came to me in little nuggets in between my trying to resolve conference problems and making mental and physical notes to do this and do that the next day. But I can tell you that the consensus in the bar afterwards -- from where I was standing at least -- was that the paper was an enormous success. So a great start to the conference.
The Friday is the major day of the conference, though. We will be packing it in today. In an hour's time, at 9.15, the ten seminars meet simultaneously. If all goes well and I am not running around sorting out problems, I'll be in the Synoptics seminar and among other things we are looking forward to papers this year from Helen Bond and Larry Hurtado.
Among other things, it was good fun to share notes with inspirational blogger Jim Davila yesterday, by the way.
Right, time to dash.
Anyway the main event yesterday was the eagerly awaited paper from Professor Ulrich Luz. His title was Myth and Christology in the New Testament. I wish I were able to write a decent precis of the paper here but I cannot. I did sit and listen as intently as I could all the way through it (i.e. I didn't fall asleep as I almost always do in conference papers, regardless of the actual quality) and I kept catching all sorts of interesting bits and bobs. And there were many points at which those sitting around me hummed with approval. Jimmy Dunn asked the first question (well, three questions; John Riches' -- in the chair -- attempted to stifle the third because of time constraints but unsuccessfully) and, if I remember correctly, he said the paper provided a "fascinating and brilliant sketch". Lots of the paper was about "Myth" and appropriate definitions of this; lots of it was about the centrality of the "Christ Myth" in early Christianity. Luz dwelt for some time too on how extraordinarily early Jesus was worshipped as God, using the term "Christological monotheism" a good number of times, a term I know from Bauckham though Bauckham was not mentioned. Luz talked about 1 Cor. 8.5-6 and Paul's redefinition of the Shema. He talked a good deal about the Gospels. He was firm that the old-fashioned view that the deification of Jesus came in as a result of Hellenisation was nonsense. I remember him commenting at this point that the Jewish Matthew's Christology was very high while the more hellenised Luke's Christology was much lower. He must have mentioned Gerd Theissen's work ten or more times -- he was clearly highly influential in his thinking. It emerged very clearly in the question time that this paper was the beginning of a major project; it was delightful to hear the humility of such a fine scholar's answers to his questioners, often simply to defer to the future working out of his grand project. He clearly sees the project as intersecting theology and religious studies; he ended by bemoaning the traditional separation of the theology of the New Testament from the history of early Christianity. Alas, my problem was that I was simply so fatigued from running around all day trying to sort out problems (e.g. 12 boxes of books from Continuum have simply not turned up. It seems clear that securicor delivered them somewhere, but they did not deliver them here. Why does it have to be my publisher whose books go missing? Let's hope our efforts to track them down today come off) that I was just not able to concentrate on the whole paper. So it came to me in little nuggets in between my trying to resolve conference problems and making mental and physical notes to do this and do that the next day. But I can tell you that the consensus in the bar afterwards -- from where I was standing at least -- was that the paper was an enormous success. So a great start to the conference.
The Friday is the major day of the conference, though. We will be packing it in today. In an hour's time, at 9.15, the ten seminars meet simultaneously. If all goes well and I am not running around sorting out problems, I'll be in the Synoptics seminar and among other things we are looking forward to papers this year from Helen Bond and Larry Hurtado.
Among other things, it was good fun to share notes with inspirational blogger Jim Davila yesterday, by the way.
Right, time to dash.
Wednesday, September 03, 2003
Review of Biblical Literature
The Review of Biblical Literature has just announced its latest reviews. The New Testament ones listed are as follows:
Bovon,François
L'évangile selon saint Luc 15,1 - 19,27
Horsley, Richard A. and Neil Asher Silberman
The Message and the Kingdom: How Jesus and Paul Ignited a Revolution and Transformed the Ancient World
Instone-Brewer, David
Divorce and Remarriage in the Bible: The Social and Literary Context
Stuhlmacher, Peter
Revisiting Paul's Doctrine of Justification: A Challenge to the New Perspective: With an essay by Donald A. Hagner
Bovon,François
L'évangile selon saint Luc 15,1 - 19,27
Horsley, Richard A. and Neil Asher Silberman
The Message and the Kingdom: How Jesus and Paul Ignited a Revolution and Transformed the Ancient World
Instone-Brewer, David
Divorce and Remarriage in the Bible: The Social and Literary Context
Stuhlmacher, Peter
Revisiting Paul's Doctrine of Justification: A Challenge to the New Perspective: With an essay by Donald A. Hagner
British New Testament Conference
The British New Testament Conference 2003 gets under way tomorrow, Thursday. I look forward to seeing some of you there. The Main Papers this year are from Ulrich Luz tomorrow evening, David Parker and co on Friday evening and Bruce Longenecker on Saturday morning. There's the usual range of seminars, including this year a new one on New Testament: Use and Influence, chaired by Christopher Rowland and Christine Joynes. I'll offer some feedback on the conference in this blog and I'll try to do it during the conference itself if I can find a few moments. In the mean time, some of the seminar papers are available on-line (see previous link). Good to see that fellow blogger Jim Davila has also put in a mention in Paleojudaica.com; let me second what he says about the papers -- if you want to read these, do so now. I'll be taking down the links next week.
Peter Head and Q
While updating the Scholars: H page (adding Philip Harland, adjusting other URLs and deleting others), I had a fresh look at Peter Head's web page. It's well worth a visit, especially if you are interested in text-critical and Synoptic things, though there's a rather annoying left hand menu that follows you as you scroll down the page so it is not always easy to see everything. One of his most recent additions is an article called Q Review (PDF), jointly authored with P. J. Williams and reproduced from a recent Tyndale Bulletin. The article begins with a brief look at alternatives to Q and goes on with more detailed looks at the International Q Project and Maurice Casey's Aramaic Approach to Q.
Scott Lewis, S.J.
I'm continuing to update the site the NT Gateway to rid it of those dead links; the latest page I've overhauled is Scholars: L, including a new link to Scott Lewis, S. J.
VocabWorks
A new link just posted on the Greek NT Gateway's Software page is VocabWorks by Karl Jones. I've had a go with it myself and it looks like a very useful teaching tool. Basically, it's a flexible piece of freeware designed for students to test themselves on their vocabulary as they progress through introductory grammars and text books. The author has provided a couple of "vocabsets" useful for the beginning Greek student, one for Wenham and one for Mounce. While updating the software page, I have also updated the link for Jamie Macleod's MiniFlash, which used to be "Pocket Greek". It now covers also Hebrew, Latin and Aramaic. I don't have a Palm Pilot myself but I understand from those who have used it that this is a useful resource.
Beyond Belief
One tidbit from the media: Beyond Belief, BBC Radio 4 on Monday August 25 was a discussion of Jesus by "a Jew, a Muslim and a Christian". I was the Christian of this blurb. You can still listen to it on-line, along with all the other past archives of Beyond Belief, on the BBC Web Site. To go directly to the programme, click here:
Beyond Belief, 25 August 2003
Or to go to the programme archives, click here:
Beyond Belief Archive
Beyond Belief, 25 August 2003
Or to go to the programme archives, click here:
Beyond Belief Archive
Blog@NTGateway.com
I've added an email address at the top of this blog; please use this to send any contributions to the blog. Please note, however, that while I will be delighted to receive your contributions, I cannot guarantee the inclusion of any of them. I'm risking putting the address on-line in spite of the fact that this means that I'll continue to be spammed at the appalling rate we are probably now all used to. If this particular email address generates undue spam, I'll follow Jim Davila's example and provide a masked email address. Incidentally, I use MailWasher to help me deal with spam -- I'd recommend it as an aid. It's free and no, I'm not on commission and don't know the designer of it.
More Featured Links
Now there are two further sites on this month's Featured Links, Philip Arland's Associations, Synagogues and Congregations and Jim Davila's Paleojudaica.com. The latter, as the inspiration for my own weblog, of course chooses itself. Hope you enjoy these fine web sites if you don't already know about them.
Featured Links: September
There are two new sites on the Featured Links page for September. The first is the TextKit: Greek and Latin Learning Tools, a remarkable site that is building rapidly -- adding on-line versions of texts, grammars and the like. It's worth joining their newsletter so that you can hear about the latest material as it gets added. And with apologies for not having added this earlier in the year, Wieland Willker's On-Line Textual Commentary on the Greek Gospels deserves to be a Featured Link too. I may add a couple of more Featured Links before the page is wrapped up; the advantage of this new weblog is that I can announce this as I go.
Tuesday, September 02, 2003
Welcome to the NT Gateway Weblog
Welcome to the new weblog for the New Testament Gateway. I've been inspired to set this up by Jim Davila's fine Palaeojudaica weblog at http://paleojudaica.blogspot.com/, not least because of a comment he made in that recently that it would be helpful to have more people doing the same kind of thing. I've very much enjoyed reading his blog over the last few months and while I doubt I will be able to do as good a job as he, I am nevertheless encouraged to try something similar myself.
I've also been conscious recently of having struggled to find the time to update the New Testament Gateway as regularly as I used to do and as regularly as I would still like to do. Having a weblog as a sister for the NT Gateway proper will enable me to combine several operations into one: (1) I will use the blog instead of the clunky Logbook , which has always been something of a bind to keep up to date. Often when I add a new link, I have to make three separate changes, to the main index page, to the logbook and to the page in question -- and this is pretty cumbersome. (2) I can replace the newsletter service with this blog; (3) I can have a means of getting out important new links much more quickly. For a long time the Featured Links site was updated monthly. Recently, alas, I've not had the time to do that. I think -- I hope! -- a web log will enable me to push out new and interesting links more regularly. But I think overall the web log will enable me to add a new dimension to the NT Gateway and I hope it will be a welcome addition. Please let me have your suggestions for the web log; please continue to send in your new links; and of course keep on sending in those reports of broken links.
I've also been conscious recently of having struggled to find the time to update the New Testament Gateway as regularly as I used to do and as regularly as I would still like to do. Having a weblog as a sister for the NT Gateway proper will enable me to combine several operations into one: (1) I will use the blog instead of the clunky Logbook , which has always been something of a bind to keep up to date. Often when I add a new link, I have to make three separate changes, to the main index page, to the logbook and to the page in question -- and this is pretty cumbersome. (2) I can replace the newsletter service with this blog; (3) I can have a means of getting out important new links much more quickly. For a long time the Featured Links site was updated monthly. Recently, alas, I've not had the time to do that. I think -- I hope! -- a web log will enable me to push out new and interesting links more regularly. But I think overall the web log will enable me to add a new dimension to the NT Gateway and I hope it will be a welcome addition. Please let me have your suggestions for the web log; please continue to send in your new links; and of course keep on sending in those reports of broken links.
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