Earlier this month were the annual meetings of the Evangelical Theological Society and Society of Biblical Literature, which were held in San Antonio, Texas. The conferences were held near the River Walk, which is one of San Antonio’s most interesting attractions. The River Walk is actually a man-made river, one story below street-level, cutting through a large part of the city. Along it are various interesting bars, restaurants, malls, and walkways. There is also a tour boat that runs periodically.

The theme of this year’s ETS meeting was the Trinity, but probably one of the most interesting things that was said, other than the papers given by Stan and Dave, was the presidential address by Dan Wallace of Dallas Theological Seminary. While most of his paper discussed medieval manuscripts, his call at the end for ETS to enjoy and encourage scholarly discussion in spite of various theological differences within the evangelical framework was certainly encouraging, especially in light of recent events. This is not the Evangelical Complementarian Society, he said; it is the Evangelical Theological Society. Also, the fact that he quoted Stan at length at a crucial point in his paper was also noticed by several of us.

The SBL meeting, not without its own recent controversies, was highlighted by one of our very own bloggers, Stanley Porter, having his sixtieth birthday celebration. Not only was there a section in the Biblical Greek Language and Linguistics section devoted to recognizing his contribution to biblical scholarship during his career so far, but there was a surprise presentation of a Festschrift—which he had no prior knowledge of, as we saw—on Saturday evening with a special reception hosted by Brill.

The Festschrift is quite impressive, sitting at over 800 pages. The list of contributors is pretty extensive, indicative of the diversity of scholars that Stan has worked with in the past. Each scholar who participated in the Festschrift has either collaborated with Stan or was a former student (or both). An important refrain during the celebration was that while Stan is primarily known for his work in Greek linguistics, his work—and the significance of his work—in so many different sub-fields within New Testament studies is often overlooked. The bibliographic information and list of chapters of the Festschrift is included below. Many of us pray that Stan has several more decades in him to continue to produce the kind of scholarship that sets a high bar for evangelicals.

— David I. Yoon

 

Lois K. Fuller Dow, Craig A. Evans, and Andrew W. Pitts, eds. The Language and Literature of the New Testament: Essays in Honor of Stanley E. Porter’s 60th Birthday. BINS 150. Leiden: Brill, 2016. xxvi + 821 pp.

Contents:

Andrew W. Pitts
Interdisciplinary New Testament Scholarship: An Introduction to the Research of Professor Stanley E. Porter

Part 1: The Texts and Language of the New Testament

Richard S. Hess
Setting Scholarship Back a Hundred Years? Method in the Septuagint Commentary Series

Christopher D. Land and Francis G. H. Pang
The Past, Present, and Future of the OpenText.org Annotated Greek Corpus

Catherine Smith and Matthew Brook O’Donnell
Computer-Aided Linguistic Analysis for a Single Manuscript Witness: Preparing to Map the OpenText.org Annotation

Hans Förster
Überlegungen zur angeblichen Textverderbnis von Apg 17,27 (Codex Bezae Cantabrigiensis) und zu Joh 8,25

John A. L. Lee
Restoring a Vernacular Form of the Word for “Glass” in the Text of Revelation

Sean A. Adams
Sense Units and Manuscript Families: A Test Proposal

Craig A. Evans
Christian Demographics and the Dates of Early New Testament Papyri

Hughson T. Ong
The Use of Greek in First-Century Palestine: An Issue of Method in Dialogue with Scott D. Charlesworth

R. Dean Anderson
Grappling with Paul’s Language: How a Greek Might Struggle

Andrew W. Pitts and Joshua D. Tyra
Exploring Linguistic Variation in an Ancient Greek Single-Author Corpus: A Register Design Analysis of Josephus and Pauline Pseudonymity

Cynthia Long Westfall
Οὖν in the New Testament: The Minimal Semantic Contribution of a Discourse Marker

Thomas R. Hatina
The Telic Conjunctions of Isaiah 6:9-10 in Mark’s Mythopoeia

Buist M. Fanning
Greek Tenses in John’s Apocalypse: Issues in Verbal Aspect, Discourse Analysis, and Diachronic Change

Part 2: The Literature and Theology of the New Testament

Mark J. Boda
The Gospel according to Malachi

Ronald D. Peters
Σημεῖα, Signs, as a Hyperlink between the Fourth Gospel and the Greek Pentateuch

Charles E. Hill
The Authentication of John: Self-disclosure, Testimony, and Verification in John 21:24

Jonathan M. Watt
Getting Along: Politeness Theory and the Gospels

Thomas H. Olbricht
The Structure and Content of Stephen’s Speech compared to Old Testament Credos

Darrell Bock
Minding the Gap: Why Paul’s Conversion Matters for Christology

Eckhard J. Schnabel
Introducing Foreign Deities: The Documentary Evidence

James D. G. Dunn
The Apostle of the Heretics?

Nicholas Perrin
Habakkuk, Paul, and the End of Empire: A Fresh Perspective on Romans 13:1-7

Stephen Westerholm
The Apostle and the Doctor: Lloyd-Jones on Romans

Craig S. Keener
A Comparison of the Fruit of the Spirit in Galatians 5:22-23 with Ancient Thought on Ethics and Emotion

James D. Dvorak
To Incline Another’s Heart: The Role of Attitude in Reader Positioning

Jae Hyun Lee
“Think” and “Do” Like the Role Models: Paul’s Teaching on the Christian Life in Philippians

Christopher D. Stanley
Postcolonial Perspectives on Paul’s “Jew-Gentile Problem”

David L. Mathewson
A Reexamination of Paul’s Opponents in Colossians

Michael J. Kruger
First Timothy 5:18 and Early Canon Consciousness: Reconsidering a Problematic Text

Bryan R. Dyer
The Epistle of James and the Maccabean Martyr Tradition: An Exploration of Sacred Tradition in the New Testament

Craig L. Blomberg
Common Exegetical Fallacies in New Testament Scholarship Rectifiable through External Evidence

Beth M. Stovell
Jesus Is God with Us: Applying Porter’s Criteria for the Use of the Old Testament in the New Testament to the Theme of Divine Presence