A Post from San Diego at the SBL

Believe it or not, I'm just hooking up to the internet tonight, Monday evening here at the Marriott Marina Hotel, next to the convention center. Trying to spend time with Catherine and Rebecca on top of giving my two paper-presentations, and doing my meetings and committee work has left little time and energy for much else. Rebecca is sleeping next to me now in a little pack-and-play type portable crib; my major papers and work at the conference are done, so I can blog just a bit. I'm happy to report that it's been a great conference. All has gone just fine.

Here are a few photos from here that I've "borrowed" from my friend Prof. Chris Brady (i.e., Targuman):

In the shot above, I'm on the left, Chris is on the right, and Kevin Wilson is standing between us.

This second photo shows the whole group of about 20 BiblioBloggers having our luncheon yesterday around noon. It's sad it's almost all males! The restroom to the left of the photo had the funniest "graffiti" wall paper: "At last I'm someplace where I know what I'm doing." You can see me at the middle left of the table. To the front right is my friend John Hobbins.

A word or two about my talks. The first was on sacrifice and atonement in the "Reverence" strand of biblical thinking. Jim Watts attended and had some great insights during the general discussion. A highlight for my was the response to my talk from the floor by Daniel P. Bailey, whose work was very helpful to me in preparing the talk. I was very excited about how much he liked my talk, and we conversed after the session for quite a while. No doubt, we will be in further communication.

I was also pleased with the session this morning where I gave my second talk on Ezekiel's abnormal reaction at the death of his wife. My talk followed Saul Olyan's paper, and we enjoyed each other's work and sitting together on the panel. The response by John Berquist of Westminster John Knox Press was very appreciative and helpful. I was very glad that Jeremy Schipper and the rest of the steering committee invited my talk. It was also great to have several neat people in attendance, including Dr. Paul Joyce and Dr. Steven Shawn Tuell, both important Ezekiel scholars and friends of mine.