Meeting of the Scripture and Hermeneutics Project (SAHP)

Past Scripture and Hermeneutics Seminar Annual Meetings

November 2010 Atlanta, GA

Dialogue on Edith Humphrey's Grand Entrance: Worship on Earth as in Heaven

"My presupposition is that worship is the major purpose and action of the Church, for (in the apt words of the Westminster Catechism) we are meant to 'worship and glorify him forever.' To adapt that famous passage from St. Paul's chapter on love, 'as for evangelism it will come to an end (for the Word himself will be known in the New Jerusalem) and as for social action, it will cease (for on that Day, we will all be healed and filled), but worship never fails!'" ~Edith Humphrey

 

Friends of SAHS-

You are invited to join us for two events on Friday, November 19 just before the SBL meetings in Atlanta.  Our main meeting will feature a dialogue between Edith Humphrey, Daniel Block, and Aubrey Spears centered on Humphrey's forthcoming book, Grand Entrance: Worship on Earth as in Heaven.

Location: Atlanta Marriott Marquis, International 3

Time: 3:00-5:30 PM (refreshments provided)

We will then gather for our annual SAHS meal.

Location: Sear restaurant, Marriott Hotel

Time: 6:00 PM

The cost for the meal is $20 ($10 for students).  Please bring cash or checks made payable to The Paideia Centre for Public Theology.(*Please note that this is not a "free" event as the Eventbrite ticket suggests.  Also, please be aware that this price does not include alcoholic beverages.)

On behalf of the SAHS committee I warmly invite you all to attend and look forward to meeting you or seeing you again this fall. Please take time now to indicate your intentions to attend either or both of these events.

In Christ,

Ryan O'Dowd

Chair, Scripture & Hermeneutics Seminar

November 2009 New Orleans

Dear friends of the seminar,

We hope this finds you well and flourishing amidst all the many challenges of pursuing creative, life-giving Scripture scholarship at this time in our cultures. 

Last year the SAHS reconvened at Boston as the start of the new phase of the Seminar. We had a great time together – for many of us the meal after our meeting was evocative of the community we experienced from year to year in the earlier stage of the Seminar and a reminder of how much we need an organization like SAHS. 

This year we plan to meet again around SBL in New Orleans on Friday afternoon November 20th.  Details will be posted on our website throughout the summer.  We will also send another email asking you to confirm attendance using the website.  For now, note that the theme for this year’s meeting will be

The New Agrarianism and the Bible:
A Dialogue with Ellen Davis

Ellen Davis has recently published an important, creative book entitled Scripture, Culture, and Agriculture: An Agrarian reading of the Bible (Cambridge: CUP, 2009). Her dialogue with authors such as Wendell Berry yields fresh, imaginative and fruitful ways of reading the OT, and the SAHS committee decided that a dialogue around her work would be a creative way to pursue our concern for theological interpretation. 

Davis’s work focuses on the OT but do note that the SAHS is “equally” concerned with the NT! Thus we are delighted that the prominent NT scholar David Moessner has agreed to respond to Davis’s book from a NT perspective and Craig Bartholomew will provide a theological response to Davis’s book. Ellen Davis has graciously agreed to participate in the discussion and to respond to the respondents. 

This is an important discussion and we do encourage you to get hold of Davis’s book and read it before we meet if at all possible. The French Orthodox scholar, Olivier Clément, refers to the “dazzling flesh of the Bible” in which the light and fire of the Christ event is offered to all. Received aright the Bible does indeed illuminate all of life with the light of Christ and Davis’s work has the potential to lead us deeply into the “dazzling flesh of the Bible” and out into the world in the service of the LORD Christ. 

We encourage you to join with us for this meeting and to help us as we develop the SAHS in its new phase of life. Participation is by invitation only, but if you think there are people we should be inviting, do please let us know.  Last year we had a good group of PhD students attending and we are keen to develop this involvement of emerging scholars who share the vision of SAHS for renewing biblical interpretation. Again, please alert us if there are PhD students and recent grads that we should be inviting. 

Wishing you well in all your labors

 

Ryan O'Dowd

 

November 2008 Boston

 

The SAHP committee gathered in Boston with almost 40 scholars from around the world to discuss the renewal of biblical and theological interpretation in academic scholarship today. Ryan O’Dowd (chair) articulated the vision for the next stage of SAHP and outlined the major  projects we have established for the coming decade.

Craig Bartholomew then introduced the Paideia Centre for Public Theology and explained its connection to the Scripture and Hermeneutics project and its role in carrying out our vision.

Dave Beldman and Craig Bartholomew also outlined Hearing the Old Testament, a new volume to be published by Eerdmans which seeks to provide a rich and unprecedented theological introduction to the Old Testament. With many of the authors of this volume in attendance, Craig gave a summary of his opening essay for the book “Listening for God’s Address: A Mere Trinitarian Hermeneutic for the Old Testament.” He encouraged the authors to
approach the Old Testament as Scripture, that is, as God’s first word of good news to a fallen world – an address which anticipates the revelation of Christ in the New Testament. Dr. Mark Boda – an author for this volume and professor at McMaster Divinity College, later said that this is one of the most promising volumes in Old Testament theology in decades.

The last part of our formal gathering included discussion around several theological commentary series edited by members of our committee. We then adjourned to a time of informal fellowship and discussion. One senior American scholar who had never before gathered with SAHP said afterwards that this was the most meaningful scholarly gathering he had ever attended.

After our meeting, attendees were invited to attend a dinner at a local restaurant. Meals have always

 

been an important part of SAHP gatherings and the tradition continued. 26 scholars joined us for almost two hours of feasting, where old friendships were renewed and new friendships were begun.