the EGLBS meeting

it's been a while since my last post; mostly because i've been too busy to think about the blog...

the EGLBS meeting went great; arrived Wednesday night at about 10:30pm in Wheeling, WV. The meeting was held at a golf resort in the mountains there... beautiful scenery, but the room was small and kinda old.

the first day started off with papers at 11am. we're broken up into different sections (e.g. New Testament, Old Testament, Archaeology...) I was in the NT section. The first session was an hour and 45 minutes, and four people read their papers and took questions. Most of the people at this thing are professors or grad students at state colleges and universities, although there were a few seminaries represented. i was the only person listed as representing a non-college! i'd say that probably half would identify themselves as "Christian", and maybe %20 as "evangelical".

the four papers read in the morning session were fairly dull--mostly stuff that would only interest you if you were a biblical studies major... the Q&A was pretty tame. i was the first presenter in the afternoon session. i had a powerpoint presentation that was incredibly basic by vineyard standards (just one image, english and greek text, and some highlighting animation), but was the most 'elaborate' there! once i finished my paper, the moderator asked for questions, and four hands shot up! the first guy, a teaching fellow at the University of Michigan (interesting coincidence) sort of laid into me... he disagreed with my take on the miracles, and basically said that the pericope in question (the hemorrhaging woman) proved that Jesus didn't heal anyone, but that people healed themselves psychosomatically (though faith); of course, i disagreed with him, and i think i did a pretty good job defending my thesis. another person disagreed with me, saying that 'miracle' and 'magic' are merely words used to accuse or affirm subjective religious interpretations of events.... a classic argument. however, i think i did a pretty good job arguing that one as well.

once the sessions were done, there was a presidential talk (about religion and violence), and finally the plenary session, where Lawrence H. Schiffman was the featured guest... he's a big-wig in the dead sea scrolls community. it was actually quite an interesting talk; this guy knows his stuff forward and backward (literally... get it, he's a hebrew scholar, they read text backward... hahaha... that's a joke)

one of the coolest things about the meeting was that my thesis advisor from ashland seminary, John Byron, was also a presenter in the NT section, so he got to hear me give my paper. we also had plenty of time to hang out, eat meals, and talk... he was really encouraging about my talk, and said it was really quite a good thing to 'stir the pot' like that.

there was a final session on Friday morning, then i headed back home... a great experience!