SBL Was Swell

Society of Biblical Literature (SBL) was held in Washington DC this year. I always like to describe SBL to the unenlightened as the "Super Bowl" for biblical scholars. Every year, the weekend before Thanksgiving, thousands of professors, students, and interested participants converge on some US city to lecture and hear lectures that are in some way related to the Bible (yet typically in a most technical, arcane, and highly classified way). If you're lucky, you might get to rub shoulders with the "big dogs" and try to catch some of their crumbs of knowledge. (For example, we went to IVP's "big party" for N.T. Wright's new book, Evil and the Justice of God. See photo with N.T. Wright and our paparazzi hungry friends encircling him for photo-ops.)

Besides all of those scholastic sophmoric shenanigans, I enjoy seeing people I haven't seen for a year or more; people that I first met in Israel or are somehow related to Israel through the six degrees of separation. It's like this annual reunion of a fraternity or alumni. So its an intense time of catch up and talking about the old days with good friends of the "book".

Sharon did a Greek language skit with her father, Randall Buth, that had Randy sitting on a whoopie cushion and Sharon smooching me on the front row. Let's just say the average Greek linguistic crowd was having to reach deep into their metalanguage minds to make things compute.

Finally, on the last day, the Jerusalem School of Synoptic Research (JSSR) had their annual reception hosted by the gracious Brian Becker. Oh, by the way, we stayed at the Grand Hyatt. Beautiful place but too expensive.

And then there was thanksgiving...