This past week was about the sixth or seventh time I have presented a paper in a conference and I am actually starting to feel more comfortable with the whole process.  As I have been reflecting on the conference, I thought I would share some thoughts, both as a presenter and an audience member. 1. Always have some kind of handout.  Now, I prefer to give out the whole paper because (a) it is easier to follow along (especially if... Read more

I only have a couple of minutes this morning to report to you that the second day of the BNTC was a rewarding day. We had an afternoon plenary session with Loveday Alexander who offered a careful consideration of how to navigate between a wildly far-fetched maximalist approach to Luke’s use of Hellenistic literary sources (novels, myths, philosophical maxims) and a classic minimalist approach that just recognizes quotations. She was especially keen on pointing out how Christ is compared with... Read more

Here in Durham we just completed our first day of the BNTS conference.  Nearly 200 scholars (record numbers for the conference, I think) arrived mid day here and we had a lovely time in St. John’s gardens greeting one another.  A number of publishers made it this year with a total of 17 conference tables needed to display their wares (SPCK, Continuum, DEO, SCM, Equinox, STL/Paternoster, CUP, Sheffield, Baker, Hendrickson, WJK, Eerdmans and more!). Our first plenary speaker was John... Read more

I just saw the latest Biblical Studies blog carnival.  This is, I think, my first time getting mentioned!  I would just like to take a moment and thank all the little people that made this dream come true… 🙂  This is pretty good timing.  I could use the extra exposure because I am presently applying for teaching jobs beginning fall 2009.  Please keep me posted on NT jobs that may not be as visible (like those that do not make... Read more

We have awaited three groups posting their abstracts and paper titles for the British NT conference (Durham, Sept 4-6).  Two have posted recently. Paul Seminar Session 1: Dr. Paul Ellingworth (Aberdeen) ‘”Nobody Knows de Trouble I Seen”: Hardship Lists in Paul and Elsewhere’The paper surveys discussions of Paul’s hardship lists from 1910 to 2007; analyzes the lists’ distinctive vocabulary and discourse structure; and briefly comments on their christological implications. Professor George van Kooten (Groningen) ‘Paul and Pagan Traditions of Jewish... Read more

In 1988, German Lutheran Bishop and Biblical scholar Eduard Lohse set out to write a ‘theological ethics’ of the New Testament (Theologische Ethik des Neuen Testaements; Stuttgart : W. Kohlhammer) subsequently translated into English in 1991 by E. Boring (Fortress Press).  Though Lohse attempts a synthetic approach to the whole of the NT in terms of ethics, he has much to say about Paul. The titular designation ‘Theologische Ethik’ is quite appropriate given Lohse’s simple but clear affirmation that the... Read more

Here is a brief list of books I might be tempted to buy at SBL…maybe I will follow around Mike Bird and his shameless attempts to be gifted books since SBL falls on his birthday – I can only hope to collect the scraps that fall from his table (remember Mike, Jesus granted to the Canaanite her request; Matt 15.27-8)!  Anyway, here goes: Words Well Spoken: George Kennedy’s Rhetoric of the New Testament (eds. C.C. Black and D.F. Watson; contains... Read more

More than two decades after V.P. Furnish’s Theology and Ethics in Paul, another Methodist scholar, J.P. Sampley, set out to write a book on Paul’s moral logic.  Walking Between the Times: Paul’s Moral Reasoning (Fortress, 1991). This much shorter treatment (120 pages, compared to Furnish’s 300+) has a clear focus even in the title, where ‘walking between the times’ refers to life lived in the period of theological history that is marked by the overlapping of the ages.  Clearly Sampley... Read more