Two Rooms Full of Books
Posted by Kushana Torumekia at 12/10/2010 10:01 PM 
Categories: Bible And Archaeology Fest, Conferences, Biblical Archaeological Review, Bible, Bible Scholars, Books, Academia, Biblical Scholars, Archaeology, Buddhism
Tags: Biblical Manuscripts
Categories: Bible And Archaeology Fest, Conferences, Biblical Archaeological Review, Bible, Bible Scholars, Books, Academia, Biblical Scholars, Archaeology, Buddhism
Tags: Biblical Manuscripts
This year's Society of Biblical Literature conference went well, as did the parallel conference sponsored by Biblical Archaeology Review . Despite the close of the semester I am partway though several of the books I bought there and hope to post reviews and Library Thing notices of them, time permitting.
One of the great pleasures of the conference is the room full of books (this year two rooms full of book), sold at discount. That said, each year there are items that take up an unhealthy portion of most book budgets all by themselves. This year's candidate was the $500 facsimile (each page is a life-size large color photo) of an early complete manuscript of the Bible. Much of the information in it appears in the footnotes of most original-language Bibles with scholars' footnotes, but anyone wanting to work on the individual nature of that particular manuscript may now do so in their own armchair (if they have a strong table or lap.)
One thing I look forward to next year is that the Society of Biblical Literature will be returning to its old tradition of meeting along with the American Academy of Religion. Curious about whether there are similarities in how devotees approach saints' tombs in Islam and Christianity? Wondering whether there are any comparison between holy relics in Buddhism and Catholicism? Intrigued by nearly any imaginable question on how any two or three religions are similar? Someone will be talking about it at this larger conference, and I think scholars of the Bible meeting off in their own corner is no help to our wider field of study. (Besides, SBL on its own — for no good reason — has far too few talks on archaeology. I am reading a book by Dr. William Dever and the one point I vigorously agree with him on is the need of more archaeology for Biblical scholars: yes, it is difficult, ambiguous, and full of apparent trivia but a careful foundation in archaeology can clear up things that no amount of reading ever will.)
-Kushana
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