BNTC: back to Friday

To resume my narrative, Friday p.m. we have "Short Simultaneous Papers", 3 x 90 minute sessions running simultaneously, each 90 minute session divided in half, 45 minutes each for a short paper (25 mins.) and questions. Unfortunately, I missed a good deal of the one I opted for because of one of those mini conference crises that needed dealing with, but what I caught of it was good stuff. Steve Walton (London Bible College) and Jane McLarty (University of Cambridge) began with a paper on teaching Greek to intermediate (2nd / 3rd year) students, those who've done a year's introductory grammar. A super presentation with intelligent use of powerpoint and good handouts providing samples. They are working on a project that will ultimately be published, which tries to fill the gap in Greek teaching materials for intermediate students. Seems promising and was certainly well-received. A lot of people at the conference seemed to feel that we should do more of this kind of thing, i.e. more discussions about how we teach and in particular how we teach Greek, sharing good practice and the like. I was happy to see Steve & Jane plug the Greek Study day they've organised to take place in Birmingham on October 22, so I'll follow suit and plug it here too.

I have less to say about the other Short Paper I heard but it was an interesting presentation from Paul Middleton on September 11 through the lens of early Christian Martyrdom. Paul is apparently writing a graduate thesis on early Christian martyrs and this had encouraged some reflection on parallels between the early Christian martyrs' views and the views of the September 11 hyjackers. Several questioners attempted to push Paul on the lack of parallel between the early Christian martyrs and martyrdom with a view to murdering huge numbers of others.

The Main Paper in the evening session was a presentation by my colleagues here in Birmingham on the joys of attempting to create a Scholarly Digital edition of John's Gospel. It was an ambitious presentation -- six of the team (David Parker, Rod Mullen, Klaus Wachtel, Bill Elliott, Jon Balserak, Ulrich Schmid, and that wasn't the full compliment either) tackling an illustrated talk and dividing the whole up into little parts representing each of the elements in the project, Principio, Verbum , Byzantine Text Project, etc. Perhaps not surprisingly there were some blips with the technology. It was difficult for me to tell as a local how it came across too because I am pretty familiar with the characters and their work. But I was happy that the conference was finding a place for some text-criticism and text-editing. Klaus Wachtel also previewed for the conference the new Digital Nestle-Aland, showing some of the functionality using 1 John. If you'd like to look at some of the work they are doing, there are details on the web at Muenster: http://nestlealand.uni-muenster.de/.

So that was Friday through my eyes, with just Saturday left. Final narration and concluding reflections in due course. I should have added we also had a Business Meeting in which Prof. Morna Hooker was confirmed as the new President of the society, taking over from Prof. John Riches. John Barclay, the new Lightfoot prof. of divinity at Durham proposed a vote of thanks for John Riches's fine work as President of the society over the last three years. (And I'd add he's been a delight to work with and to get to know).