SBL DFW - 4

Since I only clarified this on friday, I hope everyone knows I know it's not really a DFW conference. Schools represented were from TX, LA, OK, MS and elsewhere. (Still, there were a lot of DFW scholars in attendance.) It's not merely SBL either. It's SWCRS. If you even care, you already knew that - just don't think I didn't. ;)

Anyway. Today I spent four hours in SBL sessions or the book room and five hours afterwards talking to Lou. None of the presentations wowed me today, but I enjoyed learning how others think about Matthew. I also enjoyed listening to the interactions afterwards, which were unfortunately brief. Warren Carter of TCU was presiding and contributed to the discussion after each presenter. (If he hadn't, a couple of times, there might not have been any.) Carter's comments and questions revealed a historically focused mindset, which I appreciated, so I bought a couple of books by him, even though he takes a liberal position quite different than mine. They reveal the same perspective. I'm sure I'll learn a lot going through them both.

Somebody suggested later that Q&A/discussion was sparse at a lot of the sessions that were more loosely themed. Also, today's session was small - like 20 people. Yesterday's NT sessions were more like 30 or 40. I don't know if the SWCRS was larger last year or not.

I met some people, I worked on understanding different perspectives, and I made a contact or two for the future. I also spent several hours talking to Lou. I guess that's what I'm looking forward to the most about SBL 'Nawlins this November - seeing people I already know, to a degree, from their blogs. Lou and I have been able to build on our blogging experience for some fruitful discussion in person, twice now. I look forward to that.

As I blogged about James & Paul recently, it's amazing how much we "talk past one another". Learning the best ways of explaining myself (and building a working understanding of 'modern biblical scholarship') is going to take longer than I thought it would. Longer than I wish it would, too.

'Sokay. If there's one thing I got, it's time. ;)

See y'all down there in 'Nawlins. :)