Unfortunately, I was not at the Biblioblogger dinner tonight, though I will attend the one on Monday.  I had another good days at SBL (one and a half days really).  On Saturday, I first attended a session on Cognitive Linguistics and Biblical Interpretation.  It is relatively clear that this type of inquiry is new to a lot of people, but it does seem that the area is gaining interest.  After the morning session, I hit the exhibitions.  I browsed a little and bumped into my friend Jeff with whom I’ll have lunch on Monday.

I then spent a considerable amount of time with the folks from BibleWorks.  Regardless of one’s leanings on Bible software, BibleWorks has a fine group of people working for them.  Jim Barr gave me a run through of the program, which I think will increase exponentially my productivity when using it.  And, I also talked to Glenn Weaver, one of their resource developers, about something I would like to see happen with their collocation module.  I was so engaged with the folks from BibleWorks I figured I’d delay lunch and hit an early dinner.

I attended a session on Biblical Hebrew and Linguistics where my thesis supervisor was presenting.  The papers dealt with Biblical Hebrew poetry.  It was the best session I have been to so far.  I went primarily to hear Christo (my supervisor) and Randall Buth, but the other papers presented in the session were very good as well.  After the session, I finally got to meet Daniel and Tonya.  We spent most of the evening together between an early dinner, the Presidential address, and a couple of drinks afterward.  Daniel and Tonya are a fantastic couple, and I thank them for letting me tag along with them yesterday evening.  I got home from New Orleans around midnight.

I woke up early today to head down for another Biblical Hebrew and linguistics session today.  Some good papers today, but not as good as yesterday’s session.  Then, I had lunch with Joel Watts and Michael Halcomb.  Michael is a fast-rising Biblioblogger, who was recently elected as an SBL student representative (Congrats Michael!), and Joel is the #2 Biblioblogger in the entire world.  We went to the Big Easy Cafe right down from the conference center.  It was a new spot for me, but a decent bowl of Gumbo.  I don’t like my Gumbo too thick, but this one was a pretty good consistency.  We had an enjoyable conversation, though Joel’s son wouldn’t talk to me too much 😉 .

After lunch, I drove home for mass this evening in my parish in order to lead music.  Looking forward to tomorrow.  It seems I have packed as much as possible in one day, but it’s going to be a whole lot of fun.  I have breakfast with Derek Leman, a session, lunch with Jeff (a friend from seminary), a session or two, and Biblioblogger’s charity dinner.  Then, Christo and Karyn are coming to spend Thanksgiving with my family, which I have been thoroughly looking forward to for quite some time.

SBL – Day 1