Return from Sabbatical:

To those who have not given up on me in my long absence, I send greetings. It has been a few days now since I returned to the East Coast from my sojourn to the Annual Meetings of the American Academy of Religion and the Society of Biblical Literature in San Diego and Thanksgiving with friends in Pasadena. I have almost fully recovered from the jet lag and food coma; just in time for the end of the term! I have two papers, a project, and a final coming up. Next week is the last week of classes and then we have Reading Week. A reading week! When I was working on my B.A. we never had a reading day, let alone a week! But I suppose that since grad school involves more reading there is a need for a greater allowance for make-up/catch up reading time. Fine with me. I could use it. I'm a week behind thanks to the requisite networking, "professional development", book buying orgy, and geek schmooze fest that is the Annual Meeting. Perhaps I should explain further:

The AAR/SBL meeting is the annual professional conference for theologians, biblical scholars, archaeologists, Classicists, and Ancient Near East scholars. It is the largest gathering of academics in those fields (over 10,000) on the planet. We meet to present new research, attend seminars, buy books at huge discounts while the publishers try to convince us to use their books for our classes, and (most importantly) partake of free booze and food at all the various receptions. There are at least three a night.

This year's meeting was a little weird. It was the last year AAR and SBL met together before "the split." We call it The Great Divorce. For reasons not entirely understood by members of either society, the AAR made the decision several years ago to begin meeting separately in 2008. I will refrain from stating my position on this decision or making any other comments on the split as this may compromise my anonymity. My opinions are well known by several prominent members of both societies, and I'm not quite ready to get my ass kicked out of Seminary or commit career suicide just yet.

The AAR will be in Chicago the last week of October and SBL will meet at the usual time (the long weekend before Thanksgiving) in Boston. Some of us are a bit puzzled over AAR's timing, but perhaps they figured it would be a better time than close to the holiday. It's not as if there will be anything significant happening around the end of October/beginning of November next year. No major election, or anything. Although, it is Chicago. Perhaps they are hoping their members will "vote early and vote often"!

This may be my last post for another week or so while I try to get myself caught up and prepared for the end of the semester. Not to mention, get the house ready for the holidays, finish my shopping, and prepare for invading relatives. Until I write again, peace and blessings to you and yours during this glorious season of Advent.

Groovy, Man:

Today in my NT class we discussed the Epistles of James and Jude. Unlike some other letters and the Gospels whose authors are unknown, the letter of James is signed by a James. Which James that is precisely remains in doubt. It may have been written sometime around 80-90 CE, but one of the James possibilities is Jesus' brother, who was (and now I'm quoting our T.A. who was lecturing) "stoned to death in the 60's." Just let that marinate for a moment. Uh huh...got it? Yeah...it took us about 5 minutes to settle down, too. Trying to rephrase it really didn't help, poor guy. We all had images of some hippie Jesus look-alike in Haight-Ashbury sparkin' the doobie to end all doobies. But, hey...what a way to go!

The second half of the class was spent discussing Jude. (I know...it just doesn't get any better than this.) Have you ever actually read Jude? Dark imagery, allusions to esoteric figures from the Hebrew Bible, apocalyptic language, fallen angels and "ungodly intruders". It's fuckin' trippy, dude. All together now: "Hey, Jude...don't make it bad...take a sad sooooong and make it be-eh-eh-ter..."

Just another day in the Interpretation of the New Testament:

Apparently the Epistles of John are not very popular here. Several students left the class shortly after signing the roll. We started class by comparing passages from the Gospel of John to passages in the First Letter of John to determine same or different authorship. (They were written by different authors, by the way.) My MTS cohorts and I sit and chat amongst ourselves. Bad little MTS students, we did not (nor do we ever, really...) bring our Bibles to class.

Many other students appear to be immersed in other work as well. One of my friends regularly does his Greek homework in the class, and several others have long since abandoned note taking and are now fully engaged in daydreaming. "I'm just here to sign the roll," is a common sentiment. Attendance in this class is absolutely required. One suspects the professor has learned over the years that in order to guarantee regular attendance grades must depend upon it.

On any given day in this class students sit in front of their laptops engaged in earnest typing and stare with profound concentration at their screens. At least, I assume that's what it looks like from the front of the class. From my vantage point, however, a very different story reveals itself. The screens most regularly display Solitaire, Spider Solitaire, Hearts, Minesweeper, or Free Cell. Many write letters, check e-mail, or surf the web.

And today, when we were asked to open our Bibles to the First Letter of John, the guy in front of me pulled out his Biblia Hebraica. Yeah...something tells me he's not participating in this little comparative exercise, either. Welcome to Seminary.