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2011 Mid Atlantic Regional SBL – Call for Papers

Friday, August 27th, 2010

I received the following gem in my inbox last night:

Dear Colleagues,

The 2011 Mid-Atlantic Regional SBL call for papers is now available on the SBL website. The meeting will be held jointly with the Mid-Atlantic and New England/Maritimes Regions of the American Academy of Religion (AAR) on March 17-18, 2011 at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in New Brunswick, New Jersey. The call contains dates, locations, deadlines, guidelines for preparing and submitting proposals, hotel and registration information, and other important details regarding the meeting. Please follow the link below to access the call:

http://www.sbl-site.org/assets/pdfs/2011_MARcall.pdf

We are excited to announce that Dr. Lawrence H. Schiffman, Ethel and Irvin A. Edelman Professor of Hebrew and Judaic Studies and Chair of the Skirball Department of Hebrew and Judaic Studies at New York University, will serve as our plenary speaker and Dr. Maxine Grossman, Associate Professor of Religious Studies and Jewish Studies at the University of Maryland, will deliver our presidential address.

One of the interesting things about moving is that Mandy and I are now in a different SBL region. I’m rather looking forward to seeing new faces at next year’s regional SBL. I’ll certainly be submitting a paper proposal, though I’m not 100% sure what topic I will choose. As a random aside, in New England our regional SBL meetings were only a single day. A two-day regional meeting is going to take some adjustment in my thinking.

Posted in Posts by Calvin | 2 Responses »
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New England Regional SBL Meeting

Monday, April 5th, 2010

Blogging has been somewhat slow recently. Mandy and I are in the midst of finishing our final semester at GCTS, and this leaves painfully little time for blogging. But, before we know it the semester will be over, and you can count on seeing more posts from us. I’ve a few more posts on the grammar of Habakkuk 3 percolating in my head, so look for those in the not too distant future.

In the mean time, I wanted to remind any New England readers that the regional SBL meeting is fast approaching. I’m especially excited about this year’s meeting because it will be the first time I’ve presented a paper at an SBL meeting. I received word a while back that my paper proposal had been accepted, and I have been busily working on finishing the paper (another reason for the lack of posts). I, like Jay, am interested in biblical Hebrew word order. The title of my paper, which follows, should make that obvious. I hope to see some of you at the regional meeting, even if Hebrew grammar isn’t exactly your cup o’ tea.

Does the Subject Come First?: Applying Robert Holmstedt’s Theory of Word Order to Judges 19-21.

Posted in Hebrew, Posts by Calvin, Semitics | 3 Responses »
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On Scholarship, Evangelicalism and Book Reviews

Sunday, March 21st, 2010

Alan Lenzi has gone out on a limb and articulated a series of complaints over recent reviews written by Evangelical Christians in the Review of Biblical Literature. I’ve been following Lenzi’s posts on this and I have to say that I am in general agreement with him–to an extent. I do think that in some cases RBL really ought to require a more nuanced review from their reviewers. At the same time I want to be careful that requiring a more nuanced review does not lead to requiring the consensus position among critical scholars. I realize that this isn’t what Lenzi is suggesting, but it is a danger. Let me try to flesh this out a little by giving a concrete example.

The most recent review that Lenzi complains about may be found here. When I read this review I was taken aback by the following statement (also quoted by Lenzi):

Those who believe that the Bible is the literary product of divine revelation will agree that Oswalt has shown that the Bible is different from the other religious writings from the ancient Near East. Those who reject the notion that God has revealed himself in the history of Israel will remain unpersuaded that the Bible is a unique book containing divine revelation and that the religion of Israel is different from the other religions in the ancient Near East.

Why was I taken aback? Simple–I believe the Bible is a literary product of divine revelation, but based on the review I seriously doubt that I would agree that Oswalt had shown that the Bible is different from other documents in the ANE and thus divine revelation. I imagine I would come to the conclusion that Oswalt merely wanted to believe that to be the case, and so strung together a rather lengthy list of assertions to that end and called it a book. This is the kind of either-or thinking among Evangelicals that frustrates me. The thinking is that either the Bible must be entirely unique and unlike any human document or it is not divine revelation. I don’t understand why the Bible can not be quite similar to other ANE documents and still be divine revelation. Apart from this, the idea that one can prove that something is divine revelation is silly at best.

So, on the one hand I think that RBL needs to demand that reviews not simply summarize what is in a book, but rather offer thoughtful critiques of the good and bad within a book. On the other hand, I have no problem with RBL publishing a review of a book such as The Bible Among the Myths. I don’t even have a problem with the author of the review saying that in his or her opinion the book would be a good fit for some confessional schools (no matter how much I might disagree). However, there needs to be some critical engagement with the material. There needs to be a reason for why the reviewer concludes that the book might be a good fit for confessional schools. There needs to be some acknowledgment that the book steps outside the bounds of history, literary criticism, source criticism or anything else and enters into the realm of theology. My primary concern is that if one goes too far to the other extreme, any book written by a confessional scholar would simply be deemed “theology” and disregarded (e.g., Exploring the Old Testament: A Guide to the Prophets by J. Gordon McConville is published by IVP, and certainly comes at things from a confessional perspective. However, it interacts with critical scholarship and would be, in my opinion, an excellent introductory text for use at confessional schools). In other words, I think there is a place for scholarship that has a confessional audience in mind, but having a confessional audience in mind does not absolve it from the requirement that it be scholarly.

Balance is needed in this, as in all things.

Posted in Book Reviews, Posts by Calvin, Responses | 8 Responses »
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Bible-Blogger Dinner at SBL

Thursday, November 27th, 2008

Mandy has already mentioned her highlights from the SBL Annual Meeting in Boston. I may do something similar eventually, but for now I wanted to briefly mentioned the biblioblogger dinner.

There was some confusion about exactly when it was going on and where to meet at first, but once all that was sorted out, we had an excellent time. Props go to Michael Halcomb for making the reservations at Dillon’s. The staff were wonderful, the environment great, and the company engaging. If you want to see a list of the bloggers who attended, see Michael’s post here.

I was actually quite surprised that the staff at Dillon’s let us move some of the furniture around in the back room. It had a strong lounge kind of feel, and it was great to be able to hold a variety of conversations not only with those at my table (Mandy, Adam, Daniel and Tonya, as well as Patrick (who doesn’t have a blog for me to link to)), but also with those behind me on couches. As Adam already pointed out, one conversation tended to flow into the next and it was a great time. Whatever we do in New Orleans has a lot to live up to now.

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Thoughts on SBL ’08

Wednesday, November 26th, 2008

Calvin and I attended the national SBL meeting for the first time this year, and I had a blast. We live about an hour and a half from Boston, which made it ultra-convenient – though a very early start every morning. John Hobbins crashed at our place, and we had fun chatting with and getting to know him better.

Obviously, I sat through a ton of papers. Many were terribly boring, but there were also quite a few that were really profitable or interesting. Here are some of the session/paper highlights for me:

Saturday (As a side note, Saturday started off a little rocky for us. Our train on the Blue Line broke down and we were left waiting at Airport station in the blustering cold for 30 min before someone decided to tell us that the line had been shut down and no other train would be coming to get us. Thanks, MBTA! Your efficiency in dealing with unexpected situations is indescribable. To top that off, in the middle of the first paper below, the fire alarm went off on our floor. Whew. What a morning!)

Pentateuch Section, 9-11:30
The Angel Marriages (Genesis 6:1-4) and the Greek Framing of the Primeval History, by Andreas Schuele, Union Seminary Richmond.
Good presentation, and interesting content. There is, of course, a lot out there comparing the Hebrew Bible to Mesopotamian, Canaanite, and Egyptian mythology. However, not so much with Greek.

Pentateuch Section, 4-6:30
Bits of Bethel Cult behind the Golden Calf Complaint, by Daniel Fleming, New York University
Again, nice presentation quality, easy to listen to. The general consensus is that the HB tends to smooth over the reality of Israelite religion. Here, Fleming argues that we can see some of the historical memory of real cultic practices coming through the text.

Sunday

Book of Psalms Section, 9-11:30
The Most Important Text in the Bible and a Theology of the Psalms, by J. Clinton McCann, Eden Theological Seminary
Really, this whole section was decent, but this paper in particular caught my attention because it dealt with one of my favorite Psalms, Ps 82, and postulated on its theological import for the rest of the Bible.

Biblical Hebrew Poetry Section, 1-3:30
Patterned Language, by Frederic Clarke Putnam, Philadelphia Biblical University
Putnam’s presentation of the material was phenomenal. I wouldn’t have been able to fall asleep if I had tried. He was by far the best presenter out of all I listened to, in the quality and animation of his presentation. You couldn’t help but get excited about his paper! And, of course, the content was really fascinating, and hard to describe succinctly.

Women in the Biblical World Section, 4-6:30
Regulations Regarding the Purity of Priests’ Wives in Leviticus 21, by Hilary Lipka, University of California, Los Angeles
This was another section that was quite good as a whole, with some crazy but interesting stuff and mostly attention-keeping presentations. However, for some inexplicable reason, I found this particular presentation to be really interesting in content. Purity laws are not usually something I go for, but whether it be that the presenter just did a really good job of putting together the material, or something else – I really enjoyed this one.

Monday

Israelite Religion in Its West Asian Environment Section, 4-6:30
Divvying up the Divine Council: A New Perspective on the structure of the Divine Council in the Hebrew Bible, by Ellen White, University of St. Michael’s College
I have this sort of crazy obsession with the divine council in the HB, so this was a great presentation for me. I hope that I’ll get to hear further development on this topic from her next year.

Tuesday

Wisdom in Israelite and Cognate Tradition Section, 9-11:30
This whole section was phenomenal. It fit together really well and kept me awake (most of the time). The papers presented were:
Character Formation and Community Ethics in Canaanite Literature, by Richard S. Hess, Denver Seminary
Positive and Negative Human Types in the Egyptian Wisdom Literature, by Nili Shupak, University of Haifa
Character Formation and Community Ethics in Mesopotamian Wisdom Literature, by Alan R. Millard, University of Liverpool

There’s an overview of my favorite papers. Of course, I sat through a ton more and there were others that were mildly interesting as well, but didn’t make the top of the list. I was going to write a little about how my time was spent outside of sessions, but I will save that for another post as this is getting quite lengthy.

Posted in Ancient Near East, Hebrew Bible, Posts by Mandy, The Floppy Hat | 2 Responses »
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Thoughts on SBL Regional

Saturday, April 26th, 2008

This is a little delayed, but I’m finally motivating myself to post some random thoughts about the SBL Regional we attended recently.

First, my favorite paper by far was The Nature and Identity of ‘Satan’ in 1 Chronicles 21:1 by Ryan Stokes of Yale University. Calvin and I met Ryan at the Second Temple conference we attended a few weeks back, and I thought his paper was excellent. Of course, I’m partial to anything having to do with gods, mythology, or possible supernatural beings. But, his comparison of the 1 Chronicles passage with the Numbers passage that a “satan” appears in was very interesting to me. It’s not something I considered before, so I felt like I learned something. The other papers were generally decent, some more so than others.

Second, books!!! Of course, I found myself salivating over the (albeit small) supply of books on display at the conference. Several caught my eye, and we’ll be placing an order with the conference discount soon. I’ll mention one book in particular that stood out to me, because it caused somewhat of an epiphany for me by the very fact that when I saw it my reaction was interest. The Quest for the Historical Israel: Debating Archaeology and the History of Early Israel by Finkelstein, Mazar, and Schmidt: why on earth should I be drawn to this book? I am quite positive of the fact that I am not and do not desire to be an archaeologist. Nor does archaeology interest me over much. After some thought over why I wanted this book, I decided that it’s not as much the archaeology, as the “quest for the historical Israel” part that drew me. Ever since reading William Dever’s three-part series on this topic, I have become very interested in maintaining a sense of reality to the study of the Bible. I want to keep up on what archaeologists are saying about Israel, even if I don’t want to “study” archaeology. Dever had convinced me that biblical scholars need to be in dialog with archaeologists, and upon sighting this book, I realized that this idea has stayed with me.

Third, I feel relieved now that I’ve seen some papers given at an SBL meeting. I feel as though I have more of an idea of what to expect now should I want to submit a paper for next year’s regional. I also feel some pressure off, at least for a regional meeting, as there were many different types of presenters, some dry and deadpan, others who managed to make the fact that they were reading a paper to me interesting. I hope to be one of the more animated presenters when I get there one day…

So that’s not exactly a full-blown itinerary of the day, but there are the main thoughts I have coming away from the conference. All-in-all, it was a good day, and I am really looking forward to national this fall.

Posted in Hebrew Bible, Posts by Mandy, The Floppy Hat | No Responses »
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