I was lucky enough to be able to attend (as a guest) the current meeting of the Society for New Testament Studies (Studiorum Novi Testamenti Societas) here in Halle, Germany, and finally found a computer where I could say a few things about this conference. The atmosphere and style here is somewhat different than the SBL in many ways.

There are a number of main papers that everyone attends together, and then you choose a specific topical seminar to attend regularly for each of the three days. The advantage of the seminar style is that you get to know others in your area more fully over the days, and the discussions can progress over time as well. I chose the Greco-Roman world of the New Testament seminar, and discussions have been quite interesting thus far. Today we were discussing a paper which compared Paul’s use of boasting language (esp. kauchaomai) with Plutarch’s discussions of what methods of self-praise were appropriate or inappropriate. Tomorrow we will be focussing on Albert Harrill’s (Indiana University) forthcoming book on slavery and the New Testament. Harrill takes a new approach to the slaves represented in early Christian texts (including the martyrdom accounts) that places representations of slaves within the context of discourses of slavery and literary stereotypes of slavery in Greek and, especially, Roman sources (e.g. Roman Comedy). I’m looking forward to that discussion.

Apart from the seminar, there were two main papers yesterday. Richard Bauckham looked at John’s gospel in terms of its affinities with historiography, ancient history-writing (though not arguing that it is “historical”). Samuel Byrskog gave an interesting paper that employed theories of “social memory” in analyzing the gospel of Matthew.

I will finish with what is perhaps the most important difference between SBL and SNTS (at least this year): A steady flow of good German beer.