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Bible & Archaeology Fest VII
November 19-21, 2004
San Antonio, Texas
http://www.bib-arch.org/bswbTRbiblefest2004.html

Two of the Speakers will be Wm. Devers and Bart Ehrman.

List of speakers and their topics:

Susan Ackerman, Dartmouth College • “Women and Music in Ancient Israel�

Jane Cahill, Hebrew University • “Jerusalem at the Time of David and Solomon�

Michael Coogan, Stonehill College • “The Sexuality of Yahweh�

Uzi Dahari, Israel Antiquities Authority • “Archaeological Forgeries: History, Motivations and Dangers�

William Dever, Univ. of Arizona (emeritus) • “Everyday Life in Ancient Israel: Stories the Bible Doesn’t Tell�

Bart Ehrmann, University of North Carolina Chapel Hill • “Discoveries of New Gospels: The Case of the Gospel of Thomas�

Craig Evans, Acadia Divinity College • “Jewish Burial Practices of the Resurrection of Jesus�

Peter Flint, Trinity Western University • “The Text and Interpretation of Isaiah in the Dead Sea Scrolls�

Ron Hendel, Univ. of CA at Berkeley • “The Biblical Sense of the Past�

James Hoffmeier, Trinity International Univ. • “The Way of the Land of the Philistines: Recent Excavations in North Sinai�

Ann Killebrew, Penn State Univ. • “Early Israel: The Ethnogenesis of a ‘Mixed Multitude’� (also Q&A participant)

Aren Maeir, Bar-Ilan Univ. • “What’s New in our Search for Goliath? The Recent Excavations at Tell es-Safi, Biblical Gath of the Philistines�

Birger Pearson, Univ. of California, Santa Barbara • “Was Mary Magdalene Jesus’ Wife?�

Ronny Reich, Univ. of Haifa • “Recent Discoveries in the City of David in Jerusalem� (also Q&A participant)

Gary Rendsburg, Rutgers Univ. • “The Story of Rahab (Joshua 2): Whore of Jericho, Heroine of Israel�

James Sanders, Ancient Biblical Manuscript Center • “How to Read the Bible Today— Responsibly�

Carl Savage, Drew Univ. • “Refuge in the Cave of Letters: A Report from the 2000 John P. and Carol Merrill Expedition to the Cave of Letters�

Dan Schowalter, Carthage College • “First-Century Corinth and ‘You are There’�

James Tabor, Univ. of NC, Charlotte • “Recovering the Lost Gospel Source Q: Literary Imagination and Textual Realities�

Shelley Wachsmann, Texas A&M Univ. • “Deep Submergence Archaeology: The Final Frontier� (plenary session)


Does anyone know the prespectives of any of these speakers?
I think that Uzi Dahari believes the James ossuary is a forgery.

Rick Sumner

I'm not sure what you're asking. The Bib-Arch fest isn't about the James Ossuary, it just kind of ended up being a hot topic last year.

Speakers represent a wide range of fields, as the lecture titles indicate. You already noted Ehrman (NT Scholar/Text critic) and Dever (OT Scholar), and there are several notable DSS scholars there as well (Flint, Evans, Tabor). What do you mean by "perspective?"

Regards,
Rick Sumner

doc58

Thanks for the reply.
By perspective I mean do they come from a conservative, biblical literalist perspective or a more modern, progressive non-literalist view.

I am familiar with Ehrman and know that he is not a fundamentalist at all but am really not familiar with the others.

Duke Leto

Overwhelmingly non-Literalist. The possible exception might be Hoffmeier, who is still looking for evidence for an Exodus.

Celsus

Rendsburg, Coogan, and Dever are nearly apologists for the maximalists. Ok, so they're not literalists by any stretch, but they're quite happy to employ naive methodologies. I think Susan Ackerman is one of those textual scholars who doesn't really work with the archaeology and instead tries to uncover the meaning in the text. Ronnie Reich and Peter Flint are ok. If Jane Cahill is any good, her talk should be less than 3 minutes. Hoffmeier is practically a crackpot, so bad is his methodology. I've never read Ron Hendel, but his talk could be quite good, and Maeir's speech is probably so-named for colour rather than anything to do with a 9-foot tall Philistine. I can't remember when Tel es-Safi got connected with Gath. I know it was the last of the Philistine pentapolis to be identified, so that might be interesting to learn about, although it's possible they'll gloss over that.

Joel