It's true, I'm finally home.
I haven't been on the internet in over a week as I didn't bring a laptop to the conferences this year. So I have no idea what recaps have been written, who did what where, and what the general response to the sessions has been. (Note that Airton has the roundup of several bibliobloggers' SBL posts; check him out for more links)
For me, it was a great time. I met a whole lot of folks, many of whom I'd only known through blogs or email discussions. I apologize if I don't remember you all in this recap (which is centered around bloggers a-cuz I can link to them); but trust me -- it was a pleasure to meet you.
One of the first people I met at ETS (I arrived Wednesday afternoon) was Cliff Kvidahl. Cliff and I spent much of Thursday together; I even shared my initial fish taco experience with him down at the foodcourt at the mall next door to the convention venue. Cliff is into Hebrews; so check out his blog on that subject. Later on at SBL, I had the pleasure of meeting Cliff's friend Dr. Will Varner; Dr. V even did me the greater pleasure of giving me a signed copy of his latest book, The Way of the Didache (amazon.com). (Fret not, I'll blog about the books I came home with later) I had Cliff sign it too; he did the work on the concordance in the back as well as some other things. Very cool!
I gave a paper at ETS, it went well. I'll post the paper and a link to it sometime over the weekend. At the paper, I ran into my old Greek prof, Charles Hill (who is at RTS in Orlando). He's done some great stuff on the Gospel of John and also Papias and other 1st/2nd century authors; you should really look his stuff up.
I ran into Michael Bird in passing a few times. I also caught up with him at the WJK booth at SBL. He was purchasing a commentary by M. Eugene Boring, who is on my still-nascent "all names" team of Biblical Studies. The Interpretation Commentary series by WJK has three of the names on the developing team -- Long, Boring, and Best. I need to fill out the list, though. Any other suggestions?
And I met John Hobbins at ETS as well. John, it was a pleasure meeting you and I'm sorry I couldn't make the Spaghetatta; the meal and company around it would've been fun to be a part of.
I met a number of people at SBL too. One was Brandon Wason; he was checking out some stuff at Hendrickson when I ran into him first; but we ran into each other a number of times over the conference.
One of the highlights (er, if you can call it that) was wiping off the precious, precious CTRVHM(TM) Holy Phlegm that enveloped me upon entering the presence of Chris Tilling. There I was on Sunday night, innocently minding my own business at the Hendrickson reception (with Brandon Wason and his friend Kevin Scull (did I remember the name right?)) and the cloud overtook me. We navigated our way to the Duke reception; though I think Chris dove into the Boston U (Boston College? I don't remember) reception (which was next door) as a warm-up. I spotted Stephen C. Carlson 'behind the ropes' at the Duke reception, he was kind enough to invite me in. From there we found Mark Goodacre, and we all talked for a bit. But then, as happens at receptions, someone official started making a speech, so I ducked out and went back to my room.
On Monday, at the Disputed Paulines session, I ran into Nijay Gupta whose friend was presenting at the overfull session. I was there to hear Lloyd Pietersen talk. Lloyd blogs at PastoralEpistles.com on occassion, but I'd never had a chance to meet him in person. So that was a pleasure. I saw Ray Van Neste in passing, but didn't get to catch up with him otherwise. That's too bad, maybe next year.
And then in the afternoon, Chris Heard stopped by the Logos booth and snapped a picture of me and John Fallahee. I ran into Chris later in the evening in the hotel gift shop where I was purchasing overpriced apple juice.
Another highlight for me was talking for a few minutes with Michael Holmes. His Greek/English edition of the Apostolic Fathers (amazon.com) is now in its third edition and was published in time for purchase at SBL. Baker Academic sold out their show inventory sometime on Monday. The volume is excellent, both in content and also in the way it is physically put together. If you have the old second edition diglot (which never stays open on a table) then do yourself a favor and get the third edition (amazon.com). Dr. Holmes is both a gentleman and a scholar, in that order -- and his scholarship is impressive, so that says something about the sort of gentleman he is.
Additionally, I was able to introduce myself to John A.L. Lee, whose book on the History of Greek Lexicography (amazon.com) is one of the best academic books I've ever read.
David Ritsema came up to the Logos booth on Tuesday; it was good to see him again.
I saw PJ Williams on a bus in San Diego; we were travelling from the main terminal to the "commuter" terminal (we both apparently had small hops before the larger hop; though his hop back to the UK was certainly larger than mine just up the coast to Seattle). I'm sure he'd agree with me; I think "commuter" in that context means "small and cramped". I also saw Nijay again in the same terminal, on his way back to the UK as well.
And I know there were others who I'm not including here; it's just so hard to remember you all.
Sadly, I had to miss the biblioblogger roundup as I had to do an additional session for Logos on Josephus, Philo and the Pseudepigrapha. So I didn't get to see Chris Brady, unfortunately. And I never ran into Jim West, though I was hoping to -- Jim, hope you were able to dry off after being "in the cloud" of CTRVHM Holy Phlegm for so long!