Evangelical Theological Society Annual Meeting

My wife and I will be attending the annual meeting of the Evangelical Theological Society in San Antonio, Texas, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, November 15, 16, and 17.

Is anyone else on the forum planning to attend? If so it would be great to meet face to face and enjoy Christian fellowship.

Let me know, either in this thread or by Private Message, and we will work out a way to get in contact with each other. There will probably be over 2,000 people in total attendance.

 

Well, we are off to San Antonio for the annual meeting of the Evangelical Theological Society. We will be back early Friday.

I will try to log on as I have time, but the agenda is pretty full so I will give a more thorough report when I get back home.

Now behave yourselves!

 

Well, I am home. Tired, but greatly uplifted. I had a great time.

First off it was a pleasure to pick up Dr. Maurice Robinson (http://evangelicaltextualcriticism.blogspot.com/2010/08/interview-with-maurice-robinson.html) and his Ph.D. student, Abidan Shah (https://abidanshah.com/about/) at the airport and drive them to their hotel. In the process we picked up a 3rd person who was waiting for a shuttle. As we chatted he told me he was a graduate of Maranatha Baptist Bible College, in Watertown, WI and Calvary Baptist Theological Seminary in Landsdale, PA. I am quite familiar with both schools, having been friends with both founders, Myron Cedarholm at Maranatha Baptist Bible College and E. Robert (Chief) Jordan at Calvary. Mark Farnham and I had a great time talking about old times.

After arriving at the meeting venue my wife and I were sitting in the lobby and I looked over and saw somebody who looked vaguely familiar. After a few seconds I realized it was my cousin, Richard Kantzer (https://almanac.logos.com/Richard_F._Kantzer), who I had not seen in about 53 years. I walked up to him and introduced myself and right away he remembered me and the guided tour he gave me of the campus at Wheaton College in Wheaton, IL, where his father, Kenneth Kantzer (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenneth_Kantzer), taught Theology. What a blessing to see Dick again after so many years.

I also had the opportunity to catch up on old times with home town friend Dr. Ed Glenny (https://unwsp.edu/academics/faculty-listing/-/asset_publisher/7EmHmFRs4Mum/content/w-edward-glenny/), Professor of New Testament Studies and Greek, University of Northwestern, St. Paul, Minnesota.

I also reconnected with several fellow Central students/friends/alumni and had a great time reminiscing.

On Tuesday, the first day of the meetings, I (along with my lovely wife) attended several sessions, the first being "Hermeneutics: The Contributions of E. D. Hirsch to Biblical Hermaneutics" moderated by Dr. Ed. Glenny. There were papers by Elliott Johnson, of Dallas Theological Seminary, Dan McCartney, Redeemer Seminary, Michael Burer, Dallas Theological Seminary, and J. Daniel Hays, Ouachita Baptist University. Their papers were followed by a panel discussion that proved to be very interesting. And what was most significant to me was that these men could disagree without being disagreeable.

On Tuesday afternoon we again attended the sessions on Hermeneutics, but I confess, I slipped out from 2:40 until 3:30 to hear William Barrick's paper on Divine Persons in Genesis: Theological Implications.

Wednesday we attended the reading of a series of papers on Textual Criticism. The reading of these papers was moderated by Michael Scott Robertson of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary.

The first paper was by Peter J. Gurry of the University of Cambridge, "How Your Greek New Testament Is Changing: A Brief Introduction to the Coherence-Based Genealogical Method."

The second was by Dirk Jongkind, of Tyndale House and the University of Cambridge reading "The Greek New Testament Prepared at Tyndale House: The Why and the How."

The third was by Dr. Maurice Robinson, Senior Research Professor of New Testament Greek (retired) at Southeastern Baptist Seminary in Wake Forrest, NC. His paper was "Fifty Years Behind the Text: Post Retirement Reflections on a Career in New Testament Textual Criticism." In this offering Dr. Robinson managed to condense 50 years of study of and being active in New Testament Textual Criticism into 40 minutes. He did so with great enthusiasm, humor, and an incredible amount of information regarding his 50 year journey to his present position of Transcriptional Probability which led him to his understanding of the Byzantine Textform most likely representing the original readings of the autographs. (Excellent presention, by the way, but I have to admit to more than a slight bias. After all, he is a friend. )

We finished up this afternoon (Thursday) with "The Septuagint: Why a Greek-text Orientated Commentary Series is Necessary" by Stanley E. Porter, McMaster Divinity College, Hamilton, Ontario.

Over the course of the three days I had the opportunity to chat with some very interesting people, not the least of which was Dan Wallace of Dallas Seminary, who is also President of the Society. We had a very nice, but rather brief, chat at the Textual Criticism venue.

I also got to chat, briefly, with Dr. Mark Bailey, President of Dallas Seminary. A very nice man. Took his "John's Gospel" course. Great teacher.

I spent about 20 minutes talking to John Warwick Montgomery (http://www.jwm.christendom.co.uk/), author (over 50 books in 5 different languages), theologian, lawyer (licensed in the US, the UK, and France), an educator, and a man of considerable intellect, displaying great enthusiasm and vigor considering the man is 85 years old. He invited me to his summer session in Strasbourg, France, next summer but I had to decline.

I almost forgot! Dr. Larry Pettegrew (https://shepherds.edu/faculty/larry-pettegrew/)! I had a nice chat with him too. He taught at the bible college my wife attended, then at the seminary I attended (but after I left). Great guy.

Well, that is only about 10% of my last 4 days, but I am a tired old man and need my rest.

I will post more when I am able to keep my eyes open.

PS: DID I MENTION WE HAD A GREAT TIME?