>I am back from Atlanta after attending the annual meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature. It was a good meeting. I attended several sessions where informative papers were presented. As always, there were some good papers and good presenters as well as weak papers and poor presenters. But in general, the sessions I attended were very interesting, with challenging presentations.
Two significant events made this year’s meeting of the SBL a special occasion. First, I had the opportunity to meet several people who subscribe to my blog. People approached me and complimented me on the content of my blog. These encounters were very satisfying because these people affirmed what so many of you have said in public, in your comments, and in private emails. That is, that my posts deal with issues and topics that are challenging and that explain the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament.
I will never know how many people read my blog regularly. However, it is clear that many people, here in the United States and in many other countries, enjoy reading my blog. I want to thank everyone of you who reads my blog and recommends it to others. It is also gratifying to know that my posts are helpful and that through my blog people are becoming better acquainted with archaeology, the Old Testament, and with other issues related to the Bible.
Second, this year the SBL sponsored a conference for bibliobloggers. The theme of the session was “The Past, Present, and Future of Blogging and Online Publication.” Several presenters spoke on the current state of biblioblogging and how it has impacted academic studies.
During the conference I met several bloggers whose writings I read and who have dialogued with me through comments on my posts. Before the conference, several bloggers met for lunch and for a time of fellowship. We had an opportunity to know each other better. We also discussed our academic work and future projects. Overall, it was a great time.
As for the conferences and papers, most of the papers were very interesting. I could mention all the sessions I attended, but I will mention only two, the sessions where the most interesting papers were presented. The first one was a session In Honor of David Ussishkin: The Signal Fires of Lachish. The theme for the section was: “New Studies on Iron Age Archaeology Relating to Biblical History.” The papers presented were in honor of David Ussishkin, an archaeologist from Tel Aviv University. All the papers will be included in a Festschrift in his honor.
The second section I attended and the one that I considered the best was a meeting of the Evangelical Philosophical Society. The theme for the conference was: “Is Yahweh a Moral Monster?” The following papers were presented:
Paul Copan, Palm Beach Atlantic University, spoke on slavery in the Old Testament.
Matthew Flannagan, Bethlehem Tertiary Institute, spoke on the genocide of the Canaanites.
Randal Rasuser, Taylor Seminary, spoke on child sacrifice, with emphasis on Abraham’s sacrifice of Isaac.
Richard Hess, Denver Seminary, spoke on the wars of Yahweh.
In my post tomorrow, I will discuss Hess’s paper. He presented a new interpretation of the war of conquest that offers a much better way of understanding holy war and Israel’s encounter with the Canaanites.
In a separate post, I will discuss Copan’s paper on slavery in the Old Testament. Copan’s view was that slavery in ancient Israel was different from slavery in the antebellum South. One problem with his paper was that I believe he misinterpreted the text in the book of Exodus dealing with the Hebrew slaves.
I enjoyed SBL 2010. The 2011 Annual Meeting will be in San Francisco, California on November 19- 22. Make plans to attend the SBL annual meeting next year.
Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary
If you enjoyed reading this post, subscribe to my posts here.
Dr. Claude Mariottini - Professor of Old Testament 