British New Testament Conference

This year's British New Testament Conference will be held at King's College, London and there are details here:

The 32nd Annual British New Testament Conference

06 - 08 September, 2012

King’s College London has the honour of hosting the BNTC 2012. This annual conference brings together scholars from across the United Kingdom to explore various areas of research pertaining to the New Testament. The conference is divided into seminar groups and plenary sessions featuring this year’s keynote speakers:

Andrew Clarke
James Crossley
Anthony Thiselton (Graham Stanton Memorial Lecture)

More here.  (Wish I could be there!)

British New Testament Conference 2010

This year's British New Testament Conference began yesterday in Bangor. I have had to miss the BNTC for the last five years since I moved to the US and it always feels a bit odd not to be there. I was heavily involved with the organisation for several years, as the secretary and treasurer of the society, and I regret that I had only one chance (2005) to go along as a punter before moving away. Knowing that several bloggers are present, I am looking forward to hearing some reports. Jim Davila is a stalwart of the conference and will no doubt have reports for us; the new Sheffield Biblical Studies blog is already blogging on the ground, though without specific attribution (after the initial post from James Crossley); and Helen Bond mentions the conference on the new Centre for the Study of Christian Origins blog.

British New Testament Conference Reports

I've been in the US for four years now and I still miss the chance to get to the British New Testament Conference each year. There is no precise equivalent. It's long enough to be engaging and interesting, short enough to be over before you're missing home, big enough to contain a wide range of viewpoints, small enough to get to know people, academic enough to give you lots of intellectual stimulation, informal enough to give you plenty of good laughs. Facebook has, of course, provided some good little updates, but it's nice too to see some reports on the blogs. I have seen the following so far:

Nijay Gupta

Euangelion

A couple of mentions on Paleojudaica too.

Does the British New Testament Society have members?

Nijay K. Gupta asks, "Does the British New Testament Society have members?" I must admit to being a bit out of the loop these days, having missed the last three conferences because of my move to the US, but it is an interesting question. I think the tendency in the past has been to prefer the terminology of British New Testament Conference and to regard the "society" aspect as informally constituted. There are no membership fees, no list of members, and votes go to all those who attend a given conference.

Having said that, I recall Jimmy Dunn's speech at the pseudo-25th anniversary, BNTC 2004 (my report), in which he noted that the society provided a fine example of the "routinization of charisma", beginning informally and dynamically, and increasingly becoming like a formal society, with its own president, secretary, treasurer, committee and website (even if the website is currently on hiatus). Perhaps the next step in that process is for people to think of themselves as members.

Additional note: while I was secretary, the society also had its own logo, which my wife Viola designed (see above). It has since been dropped on the website, though it's perhaps worth nothing that we decided to make the logo refer to the "conference" rather than the "society".

Update (11.23): Lloyd Pietersen's comments are worth bringing up to the main post:

Two comments. First, you'll be pleased to know that the logo still remains on our letterhead. So any letters I send out contains your original logo. Second, BNTS is formally consituted as a Society and is a registered Scottish charity. It still does not have a formal membership but the committee does refer to the following criteria for admission to the annual conference:

(1) Teach New Testament (or a cognate discipline) at a recognized HEI
(2) Hold a doctorate in the area of New Testament
(3) Currently engaged in a programme of study that leads to a doctoral degree in New Testament
(4) Have previously been in attendence at the Society's annual conference
(5) By special permission of the committee for a time limited period

More British New Testament Conference Reports

It is good to see some more reports coming in on this year's British New Testament Conference in Durham (see previous post):

Dunelm Road (Ben Blackwell)
Early Christian History (James Crossley)
Euangelion (Michael Bird)
Nijay K. Gupta
Paleojudaica
Sean the Baptist (Sean Winter)

These are all excellent and enjoyable reports, and I love the pictures on Paleojudaica while wondering whether that gathering is now beginning to burst at the seems?! One thing is missing in the above reports and comments, though. No one mentions the poor secretary who makes all this happen. If the job is as time consuming now as it was when I did it, Louise Lawrence definitely deserves a word of thanks.

British New Testament Conference 2008

The British New Testament Conference 2008 gets underway today in Durham. Although the website is still hosted here on NTGateway.com, I am not able to make it on account of being several thousand miles away, but the programme (PDF) looks interesting; see also the seminars. I look forward to reports from the ground, so far just Jim Davila on Paleojudaica.

Update (Friday): Nijay K. Gupta reports on day one.

British New Testament Conference 2007

I wish I'd been there. It still feels very odd to me not to be capping the summer off with the BNTC. This year it was in Exeter, and Jim Davila has a write-up with pictures on Paleojudaica. For the second year running, Jim has a photo of himself with my former doctoral students Helen Ingram and Catherine Smith, with a message, which is reciprocated. I am delighted to hear that Helen's paper in the Social World seminar generated some stimulating discussion, which does not surprise me at all.

Updates (Monday, 8.41am and 6.37pm): Ben has a nice review of the conference on Dunelm Road and James Crossley on Earliest Christian History, in which he reveals that he skips the formal meals and goes out for his own with friends, SBL-style, very naughty. I like James's speculation about what the state of the British NT establishment will look like in a few years given the creative work currently being done by scholars in their 30s and 40s.

British New Testament Conference 2007

Details have recently been sent out concerning the British New Testament Conference 2007 which is to be at the University of Exeter on 6-8 September 2007. The plenary papers appear to line up some top brass:

Professor Morna Hooker, "Paul the Pastor: The Relevance of the Gospel"

Professor John Riches, "Reception History as Literary History"

Professor Larry Hurtado, "Early Christian Manuscripts as Artefacts: An Illustrated Presentation"

British New Testament Conference 2006

On Paleojudaica, Jim Davila reminds us that the British New Testament Conference 2006 gets underway this afternoon in Sheffield. In fact, people are probably saying their hellos over drinking tea as I write, perusing the book display and looking forward to dinner tonight followed by the main paper, Prof. Graham Stanton on ‘Messianism and Christology: Mark, Matthew and Luke’. That's a paper I'd love to hear.

This will be the first BNTC I have missed in almost a decade. I'm actually quite sad about that because it is such an enjoyable conference and I look forward to meeting old friends. I was secretary of the society for three years, and webmaster for longer. Now Bridget Gilfillan-Upton is doing a superb job as secretary and the website is looking great under my former doctoral student Catherine Smith's control.

You can see the conference programme here (PDF) with more details on all the seminars (including some papers and lots of abstracts) here and short papers here.

Update (Friday, 8.49): I am really touched by this comment on Paleojudaica.

BNTC, Day 3

Saturday -- the last day of the British New Testament Conference at Liverpool Hope University College. After a cooked breakfast, the third and final meeting of the seminars. I was in the Synoptics Seminar and we had two papers, first Seamus O'Connell on "Fourfold Repetion in the Gospel of Mark". Paul Foster asked the key question, pointing out that a good number of Seamus's fourfold repetitions depended on his questionable decisions about pericope divisions, and with variation in the units, they became five-fold (and so on). I questioned his use of the Delbert Burkett argument on the "omission" of "benign" redactional features of Mark in Matthew and Luke, on which I'll be writing my review of Burkett's book soon for JTS.

Ken Olson, a PhD student at the University of Birmingham, but shortly to move to Duke University, gave the second paper on the Temple-mockery on the cross in Mark, which he uses towards an argument for a post-70 date for Mark, and I find it pretty convincing and hope that Ken will get it published soon.

After the seminars, coffee. After coffee, the postponed Business Meeting and then the final main paper, Darrell Hannah on the Fourfold Canon in the Epistula Apostolorum. It was another educational paper for me, because I was largely ignorant of the the text at the beginning. Darrell argued that the text witnesses to the existence of the fourfold Gospel canon as early as the 140s. As usual, though, I did enjoy a short nap in the middle of the paper, and no doubt missed some good stuff.

It was then just lunch and departure. As ever, there was a lot of good feeling. It's such a friendly conference. Ursula Leahy, who did the lion's share of the local organisation, was warmly thanked for her efficiency and good humour, and was presented with flowers and wine by Kenneth Newport.

The conference was also a little sad for me as the last I'll be able to get to, at least for the foreseeable future, because of my forthcoming move to the USA. And I had so many expressions of good will and fond farewells that it made me much more conscious of that fact than I might otherwise have been.

One concluding comment. When Michael Goulder used to be well enough to attend the conference regularly, he would always comment on the presence or absence of what he called the "top brass", i.e. the professors in the discipline. Alas, this year we were short on the top brass. Morna Hooker (president) was there, and John Riches (former president); Christopher Rowland was giving a paper, and Andrew Lincoln and Loveday Alexander were there too, but otherwise, the senior scholars were largely absent. I know Michael would have commented.

BNTC: Day 1

This year's British New Testament Conference began on Thursday evening with a drinks reception and a welcome from Liverpool Hope University College, who were our hosts. As often at the conference, the drinks were all situated by the book display, an ideal arrangement. After a good dinner, with generous amounts of wine on offer, we had the first main paper from Richard Burridge, Dean of King's College, London. His topic was "A Biographical Approach to New Testament Ethics", a paper that interacted with other recent studies on New Testament ethics, including those of Richard Hays and David Horrell and made suggestions, among other things, for a Jesus-based, Christological, biographical foundation for New Testament ethics. Richard had a decent powerpoint presentation and a hand-out and although I had my customary doze, it was pretty straightforward to follow, and stimulated lots of useful questions, in spite of the healthy amounts of wine imbibed.

One of the most remarkable things about this conference was the substitute for the traditional bar. Because Liverpool Hope were not able to provide a bar in the Students' Union, Kenneth Newport put on a free drinks do in the Chaplaincy each evening, and this generated a lot of good feeling, and some very enjoyable conversations. As several people remarked, it is the post-paper socialising that remians the heart of the conference. I'm just hoping that Kenneth's hospitality did not go unrewarded. On Friday evening, Richard Burridge made a little announcement reminding the punters to put a little donation in to help cover these expenses.

British New Testament Conference Over

The British New Testament Conference has now finished and I'm about to catch my taxi back. Alas, no wireless access or other internet access in the rooms so I have not been able to get my blogging machine into action. But there are a couple of computers in the Refectory and I've seen other bloggers in action here so look forward to finding out what they have been sharing. When I've managed to steal time at these machines, I have been busy on final preparations for our move to the USA, which now looks like it will be in just over a fortnight or so. I had a lot to do by email and mobile phone and begin to wonder if it had been a wise decision to come along, but I don't regret it -- it's been a good conference and, as usual, I have met lots of old and new friends and heard a mixture of the great and not so great papers. When I get back, I'll write a full report.

Update (Tuesday, 01.16): most enjoyable post from Rick Brannan on Ricoblog on a fragmentary remain of the above post, discovered and analyzed in the distant future.

British New Testament Conference starts today

The British New Testament Conference starts today and is hosted this year by Liverpool Hope University. I will be going along and will take my blogging machine with me. I doubt that there will be any wireless or other internet access -- I've not known it thus far with any of the BNTC locations -- but you never know. But at some point, expect some reports. And I look forward to seeing some of you there.

More BNTC updates

I've made some more updates to the BNTC website for the conference programme this year, Liverpool, 1-3 September:

British New Testament Conference

The updates are to the Short Papers -- full programme (minus one abstract) now available -- and to Johannine Literature, where there is a change in the programme.

As it happens, I sent my own booking in today, since it now looks like I am going to be able to make it after all. It's a conference I always look forward to, so I am very pleased that I should be able to make it, having earlier thought that it would not be possible.

More BNTC updates

There are more updates available on the British New Testament Conference website, specifically full papers for downloading on the Acts Seminar page and on the Social World of the New Testament page.

British New Testament Conference 2005 Seminars

I have spent some time tonight uploading details on the Seminar Programme for this year's British New Testament Conference, which will be in Liverpool from 1-3 September:

BNTC Seminars 2005

There are still a couple of seminars missing (Revelation and Second Temple Judaism), but otherwise it's almost complete. I've been sorry to do this work this year knowing that I am unlikely to be able to make it. As ever, there's lots on the programme of interest.

Update (11.59): Bridget has also sent over for me the missing NT and Second Temple Judaism abstracts and I have uploaded those too. So now we have a full seminar programme with only the exception of the Revelation seminar.

BNTS 2005 Acts Seminar Call for Papers

In addition to my previous post about the British New Testament Conference 2005, I post the following on behalf of Dr Steve Walton:

-------------
CALL FOR PAPERS
The Book of Acts seminar at the British New Testament Conference
Liverpool Hope University, 1-3 September 2005

I am writing to you as someone with an interest in Acts, or as someone who may know others with such an interest (e.g. research students), to invite papers for the Book of Acts seminar group at next year's British New Testament Conference. The conference takes place at Liverpool Hope University, 1-3 September 2005. The brochure for the conference will be circulated by email. If you don't regularly hear about the conference, please let me know, and I will ensure you receive the brochure - or you can find details on the Web at: http://www.ntgateway.com/bnts/

This seminar aims to be a forum for considering Acts from various angles:
historical, literary, textual-critical, theological, archaeological, the social world, possible links/parallels with other ancient writings, and so on. We are very happy to include discussion of topics which relate Acts to the wider contexts of Luke-Acts and the Pauline corpus, where they are relevant and helpful to the study of Acts, although the focus of the seminar is studying Acts. Papers are welcome from both research students and more established scholars.

If you (or someone you know) is interested in offering a paper, please make contact with me as soon as possible (ideally by the end of April), so that I can make plans. It would be helpful to have a working title and brief sketch of the topic(s) which the paper would cover. Papers could be longer, requiring a whole seminar session for discussion (90 minutes) or shorter, filling half a session (45 minutes). Responses by post, fax or email are all fine.

Our usual practice in the Acts seminar is that papers are available on the British New Testament Society web site a few weeks before the conference, so that seminar members can read them in advance. We then ask the paper's author to give a 10-15 minute summary before we discuss the paper. This approach maximises discussion time, which is a major reason we meet together.

Please pass the word around about the Acts seminar, and encourage others who may wish to offer a paper to contact me soon. A copy of this notice as a PDF file is available for you to place on your departmental notice boards.

If you have any questions about the seminar, please do get in touch with me.

With warm regards
Steve

Dr Steve Walton s.walton@lst.ac.uk
Senior Lecturer in Greek and NT Studies, and Academic Secretary
London School of Theology, Green Lane, Northwood, Middlesex, HA6 2UW
tel: 01923 456326; fax: 01923 456327; http://www.lst.ac.uk
--------------

This call for papers is also available as a Notice in PDF here:

Acts Seminar 2005 Call for Papers

British New Testament Conference 2005

The details for the British New Testament Conference 2005 are now available, including invitation, booking form and call for papers:

British New Testament Conference 2005

The venue is Liverpool Hope University and the date is 1-3 September. The main speakers this year are Richard Burridge, Christopher Rowland and Darrell Hannah.

(It might be worth adding that I have continued as webmaster of the BNTS site, but I no longer have any role on the committee. Most society correspondence goes to the new secretary, Bridget Gilfillan-Upton, details on the site).

BNTS mailing list

Since standing down as secretary of the British New Testament Society, I have transferred all of the existing mailing list (which was based at bham) to Google Groups. In order to weed out dozens and dozens of bouncing and dud email addresses, we went for an invitation-based list. So far less than half of those invited have responded. So if you are one of those who used to receive BNTS updates but has not received any information about the change of list, let me or Bridget Gilfillan Upton know. Or, of course, if you are someone who would like to received updates about the conference (for scholars and post graduate students of the New Testament) and have never been on the list, please be in touch.

BNTC Papers

I have received several emails asking me if the main papers from this year's British New Testament Conference are available or will become available on-line. The answer is: no, I am afraid not; or not, at least, on the BNTC web site. Each of the three papers will no doubt make it to print eventually, and if and when I see them I'll make a note here. In Tom Wright's case, it is worth keeping an eye on the N. T. Wright page which has a whole host of on-line lectures, papers and the like.