BNTC, last post

Reading Jim Davila's post reminds me that I forgot to add that there were three trips on the Friday afternoon, one to the Mingana Collection, one to the Coin Collection at the Barber Institute and one to the Botanical Gardens at the university. This is a society tradition -- the Friday afternoon is trips afternoon, to places of local interest, especially those that have some relation to Biblical Studies or the ancient world. Unfortunately I had to miss it this year because in a committee meeting.

One remaining thing to report: the third and final Main Paper was Bruce Longenecker on "Seducing the Ear: Lucan Aversion to Humps and Hollows". This was an interesting and well-received paper on "chain constructions" in Acts of the Apostles, a kind of narrative device / convention common in antiquity and used lots -- according to Longenecker -- in Acts. He argued that they occur at key moments and could provide important clues to vexed issues like Pauline chronology. I understand that this a selection from a 100,000 work manuscript Longenecker has recently completed on the topic. Questions afterwards focused a good deal on why the feature doesn't crop up in Luke's Gospel / suggesting perhaps it does occur in Luke. Good end to the conference, anyway.

Let me just my reflections on the conference by thanking the marvellous team that made it possible. Thanks to everyone, but very special thanks to Catherine Smith, Helen Ingram and Richard Goode who consistently went way beyond the call of duty, arriving early, leaving late, sometimes going without food (sorry about that -- I should have realised!), troubleshooting, planning, thinking, taking the initiative and being generally fantastic. And the most special thanks of all to Catherine who headed up the whole operation superbly.