Saturday at the SBL
Today wasn’t the most exciting day I have ever had at the SBL.
I started off the day by listening to one paper at in the Chronicles-Ezra-Nehemiah section. It was Mark Leuchter’s paper, “The Prophets and the Levites in Josiah’s Covenant Ceremony.” I wanted to hear it because of my interest in the history of the priesthood. It was a good paper, although not exactly on the topic I was hoping.
I then headed over to the book fair. The only book that really caught my attention was Christophe Nihan’s From Priestly Torah to Pentateuch: A Study in the Composition of the Book of Leviticus. I saw it when looking for my own book at the Mohr Siebeck exibit. Apparently they only bring books for two years, and because my was published in 2005, they didn’t bring it this year. I would love to get Nihan’s book, but even with the convention discount it is $112.
After lunch with a friend from Abingdon, I tried to go to the Hebrew Literature and Cognate Literature section on “Karl van der Toorn, Scribal Culture, and the Making of the Hebrew Bible.” It was packed to overflowing, so I didn’t bother trying to push my way in. Fortunately, both this section and the 4:00 one were in my hotel, so I just came back up to my room for a while.
At 4:00 I went to the first of four Pentateuch sections. This was a good section. My favorite paper was entitled “Of Animals and Nations: The Reception of Dietary Laws in P, D, and H.” It wasn’t until the Q&A session after his paper that I realized it was Christophe Nihan, who wrote to book I mentioned above. Another good paper was Mark K. George’s paper, “Israel’s Tabernacle as Modification of Priestly Creation.” He argued that the construction of the tabernacle is the completion of the creation begun in Genesis 1. In contrast to the gods who build the temple at the end of creation in Mesopotamian myths, in P the tabernacle building in Exodus 25-31 and 35-40 are the conclusion to creation. This could dovetail nicely with my discussion of the covenant at Sinai and what Moses received there according to P.
I finished the evening with a nice dinner with two good friends from seminary, one from the largest US state and the other from the second largest.
On November 21st, 2007 at 1:43 am
[…] is the book I am most looking forward to reading. As I mentioned in a previous post, I heard Nihan speak at one of the Pentateuch sections. The book is an expanded form of the […]
On December 6th, 2007 at 12:42 pm
[…] then the setting up of the cultus would be the one of the main goals of P. It would fit nicely with Mark George’s idea that the completion of the tabernacle is the completion of creation.4 This ending would also […]
On December 24th, 2009 at 2:46 am
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