SBL Day 5 (Tuesday)

The Tuesday morning of the SBL is, it has to be said, a bit of a damp squib. As a punter, one is best off when one has a latish flight and one has time to enjoy the last morning fully. But most do not. Some have already left by Monday evening. Many more set off on Tuesday morning without returning to the Convention Centre. No one likes being scheduled on a Tuesday morning. This year, I was able to get to about half of the final Synoptics Section before we needed to pick up our car to begin the drive back to Raleigh. First up in that section was Mike Bird, who did a nice job on the Gospels for all Christians theme, but with a special focus on non-canonical Gospels, arguing that these do not provide counter-examples to the Bauckham claim. Mike is a lively speaker, and his paper was easy to listen to, and I look forward to hearing more from this fellow biblioblogger in the future. Next up was an old favourite in the Synoptics (and related) sections, Jeffrey Gibson, who spoke on "A lack or Alas?" concerning the bread petition in the Lord's Prayer. Since Mike seemed to have left after his paper, and Jeffrey left after his, I feared rather for the remaining speakers, especially as there were only ten or so people in the audience for the session. It does seem a bit unfair that those who draw the short straw of the Tuesday mornings get such a poor audience. Is it time to scrap Tuesday morning sessions?

Our drive back was great, talking all the way and a great second visit to Cracker Barrel to boot. This was one of those SBLs that left me looking forward very much to next year's.