On Reading and Hearing Papers at SBL

I will be reading a paper at SBL – and it will be heard by others, I hope. The paper will be about precisely that experience, in a sense – the fact that texts, including texts that contain intertextual echoes about other texts, as well as their prior contact (if any) with the echoed texts themselves, were heard rather than read by most of those who experienced them. I originally left open the precise texts to use as examples to explore the relevance of this oral/aural facet of intertextuality, but I’m presently inclined to focus on some of the YHWH texts echoed in the New Testament and connected with or applied to Jesus. Richard Bauckham mentions these a lot in his recent book Jesus and the God of Israel. I’ll be reviewing that book here on the blog very soon, as well.

Several people have mentioned that the program book for the annual meeting is now available online, and so those who are planning to attend can begin checking which interesting papers they will have to miss because of conflicting schedules. And of course, planning for the bibliobloggers’ get-together can now begin in earnest!

I’m also excited to see that there will be papers connected with the Mandaeans read at SBL this year. There will also be papers on monotheism and Christology, and perhaps most exciting of all, a new program unit formation session on “Unity and Diversity in Early Jewish Monotheisms”!