ETS Day One and Two

Day One was fun with several weird and odd things happening to me, but I will blog only the events which I can narrate without incriminating myself or others.

First, I got a free book from Fortress Press (Nickelsburg on Ancient Judaism and Christian Origins). I also picked up Justification and Variegated Nomism volume 2, Richard Horsley Christian Origins, and tomorrow I'll probably pick up one other volume. My thanks to Alan Bandy for some advice (mostly reminding me of my own philosophy of only buying books I need or have already used).

Second, I met a lot of people like Stan Porter and bloggers like Alan Bandy and Jim Hamilton and several other notable people.

Third, Jamie Grant made it to the US with a new passport (praise God)

Fourth, I had dinner with the gals from Christians for Biblical Equality and that was a hoot.

Fifth, I sat in some good papers including a review of Scott Peck's work on demon possession and the best presentation on egalitarian vs. complementarian views I have ever heard.

Day Two was a good day as well.

The first paper I attended was Q, Mark, Luke, Matthew: the Correct Order of Synoptic Development? By Leslie Robert Keylock. It argued that there was indeed a Q (contra the Goodacre-Farrar-Goulder hypothesis: note that Mark Goodacre is now included as a progenitor or propagandist of the thesis) and that Matthew was the latest Gospel (a la Hengel) but Matthew and Luke have no literary relationship.

Anthony Bradley of Covenant Seminar gave a paper on The Emergent Church: Ancient Roots of a Modern Movement, yeah Right? He argued that the diversity and pagan background of the Roman world provides Christians with a similar context in which they can subvert the culture (esp. Hip Hop culture) with Christian values.

I attended three papers at the Gnostics and Gnostic Gospels session including:

Jonathan M. Watt (Geneva College) on The Absence of Context in the Theory of Competing Christianities
Stanley Porter (McMaster Seminary) gave an excellent argument for dating John’s Gospel between 70-100 AD based on pEgerton 2 and p52.

Brad Mellon (Bethel Seminary) gave a presentation on The non-apostolic preaching of the Cross which argued that the Gnostic Gospels didn’t have any atonement theology like the canonical Gospels. My immediate response would be: Well duh? Pagels would probably respond by saying “Praise the Sophia in me that we have been able to deconstruct and be liberated from that theology of divine child abuse, God the Father abusing and killing his own son”.

The plenary session by D. Jeffrey Bingham (Dallas Theological Seminary) gave an excellent exposition on trends accounting diversity in the early church from Baur to Ehrman. Email him and ask for a copy.

Michael Svigel (Dallas Theological Seminary) gave a paper on “You got to know when to hold’em: Trumping the Bauer Thesis” not too bad, but I think he tries to project too much of the orthodox theology to the immediate post-Easter setting.

I got to meet a lot of good people like Joel Willits (North Park/Moody), William Barclay (Reformed Theological Seminary), I. Howard Marshall (Aberdeen) and Mickey Klink (Talbot).

I have bought several books but will blog on them separately – tomorrow is the 50% sale!

Must go and rehearse my paper on “Is there anything distinctive about the Third Quest for the Historical Jesus”