Admittedly, she’s not as famous as her sister, Enya, but Máire (Moya) Brennan comes in second on my personal “favorite Celtic/New Age vocalist” chart. Yet, somehow, I completely missed the fact that she released a Christmas album in 2005 and then re-released it, with different cover art (shown here), in 2006. Well, thanks to Rhapsody, I’m ignorant no more. If you like this sort of music, check out An Irish Christmas. You’ll be glad you did.

If you haven’t already read it, I commend to you Keith Bodner’s article “Crime Scene Investigation: A Text-Critical Mystery and the Strange Death of Ishbosheth,” Journal of Hebrew Scriptures 7, article 13 (2007). I will not comment extensively right now, because I don’t have time right at the moment, and I’d rather you read the article for yourself anyway. I would identify the biggest “take-away point” as the claim that what look like text-critical mysteries don’t always admit of text-critical solutions. Two divergent versions of “the same” text may represent distinct artistic sensibilities. In a sense, both the MT and LXX versions of Ishbosheth’s death are “originals,” and eliminating one in favor of the other robs of us of the other’s literary effect.

(It’s my intention to post one “well worth reading” blurb each week, beginning today. We’ll see how well I follow through on that.)

If you’re interested in what Ken Miller had to say when he spoke to a packed house at Pepperdine University, now you can hear it for yourself.

Dashboard Confessional recently released a new album, The Fruit of Poison Trees. Although I’ve liked Dashboard Confessional’s music in the past, I found the songs on this album to be only marginally better than utterly forgettable. Sad, but true.

Okay, so the network just cut to commercial during the Chargers game, and I have to ask: why is Kentucky Friend Chicken using “Sweet Home Alabama” in their commercials?

Of course, my main advice would have to be, “Go to your session on the correct day.” But I offer some other suggestion as well.

Before I get to my own suggestions, please allow me to commend Kevin Wilson’s. I agree with every point. Also, I should add that I’m not innocent in any of these matters; I’ve probably made every single mistake described in Kevin’s post, in Duane’s (see below), and in my own.

Present your research; don’t read your paper. I am preaching to myself here, as in the past I have been all too guilty of reading rather than presenting. Consult Duane for more on this point.

Get to the point. I have an abbreviation that I sometimes write in the margin of my notes: “DBD” or “death by data.” If you have a lot of data, put it on a handout and summarize it. As it happens, I am sitting right now through a speech where the speaker is overloading us with data—and unnecessary data. [Note: I typed this paragraph during an SBL session—shame on me for multitasking?—but didn't post this blog entry until after Thanksgiving.] The speaker gave us a handout, then proceeded to basically go through every example on the handout. The speaker’s data supports his point quite well, but really, most of the speech was unnecessary. This could have been an 8-minute presentation instead of a 25-minute one.

Don’t forget the warrants. Anybody but me remember the Toulmin model? One paper I heard at SBL this year stands out as a particularly bad example of giving only 2/3 of an argument. The author read a paper that gave a whole bunch of data, then jumped to a claim without giving warrant for that claim. In other words, the reader didn’t show how the data actually support the conclusion drawn; instead, the author just skipped that step. We could have done with a lot less data and a lot more warrant in that particular presentation.

If you’re going to use presentation software, make your slides meaningful. Don’t use presentation software to project a mere outline of your speech. If you put a lot of text on your slide and you’re moving so fast that your audience can’t copy down the text, you’re cramming too much onto your slides. But your slides shouldn’t have a lot of text on them anyway. Use your presentation software to enhance your speech. It’s not reverse-teleprompter software.

If you’re going to use a handout, bring enough copies. Spend a few extra dollars and bring too many copies. Having leftover handouts costs you a little bit of money. Running short of handouts cost you the audience’s attention.

Use caution when citing yourself. Sometimes it’s useful, when your paper is part of a larger trajectory of research, to mention that. But please think carefully about whether doing so really advances the argument you’re making now, or whether it’s just a bit of self-promotion. Not that I’m against—or above—shameless self-promotion. But when I’m listening to a conference paper, what I’m interested in is your argument, not your CV. Pharses like “as I have argued elsewhere” or “as I wrote in a paper two years ago” usually add nothing except a few words to your presentation. Just go ahead and assert your claim. If somebody calls you on it in Q&A, then you can make the bibliographical reference to your earlier work. By the way, this applies to written work as well. It’s fine to footnote yourself, of course—indeed, you must, to avoid plagiarizing yourself, and it’s also a useful way to avoid redundancy in making the same argument again and again. But the footnote does the job by itself, so you don’t need to bulk up the main text with “as I have argued” phrases.

Strive for a strong ending that is obviously an ending. If you have to say “Thank you” to let us know you’re finished, try reworking the final paragraph. It won’t always work, I admit, but do your best.

During Q&A, don’t bother to affirm that a question is “good” or “interesting.” Professors should work on this in their classrooms as well. Just answer the question instead of commenting on the question.

And finally, one bit of advice for conference attendees:

Don’t hijack the session. No matter how smart you are, or how famous, or how right, we come to the session to hear the presenters, not the audience. I can only speak for myself, of course, but my opinion of a scholar is diminished if that scholar seems to feel a compulsion to ask a question or—worse—make an extended comment after every single paper.

Another fire has broken out in Malibu, west of Pepperdine and extending toward Kanan Road, one of the main arteries down to Pacific Coast Highway. The upper campus and student residences were evacuated for a short time, but on-campus residents have been allowed back to their homes and dorms. The fire is burning down toward the Pacific Ocean. So far, it hasn’t jumped Pacific Coast Highway, but the winds are high (up to 75 mph) and the danger is therefore correspondingly high. Over 35 homes have been burned so far. Right now, Pepperdine does not seem to be in danger, but this could change if the winds shift. This fire is being called the “Corral Canyon fire,” if you’re searching for info via Google. Early indications are that the fire was started (accidentally, but that’s small comfort to homeowners) by some folk partying in the canyon. Try the KCAL or KTLA web sites for the latest information.

Update: Now they’re talking about arson, though it’s too early in the investigation to say anything definitively.

Somehow, in high school, I managed to develop a love for old-time (that is, 1930s–1940s) radio dramas, most especially The Shadow. Recently I’ve been trying to rid my life of cassette tapes and videotapes, and so I’ve been transferring cassettes of the The Shadow episodes to mp3 format on my computer. At the end of most of the episodes, the Shadow gravely intones, “The weed of crime bears bitter fruit. Crime does not pay. The Shadow knows!” However, in the episodes I’ve been transferring today—from 1945—the Shadow instead says, “As you sow evil, so shall you reap evil. Crime does not pay. The Shadow knows!” What happened? Did the Shadow get religion sometime in 1944 or 1945? Why did the show shift from the iconic “weed of crime” saying to a biblical-sounding “sow and reap” saying? Anybody know?

I’m really a month late posting this, but my colleague Michael Casey died much earlier than any of us would have wished, on October 22. He’d been suffering from cancer for several years. There’s just a bit more on the Christian Chronicle web site, and a slightly longer remembrance in Pepperdine’s student newspaper, the Graphic.

Here area some more photos from SBL. These were taken on Monday, arranged in chronological order of snappage.

Rick Brannan and John Fallahee of Logos Bible Software

Ron Cox, my colleague at Pepperdine

Claudia Camp, author of Wise, Strange, and Holy

Peter Trudinger, who won a $50 Eisenbrauns “shopping spree” on Sunday

Jim Eisenbrauns and James Spinti

My Pepperdine colleague
Tim Willis, his mother Evelyn, and his father John Willis, who was my M.A. advisor at Abilene Christian University

Bob Cargill of Virtual Qumran fame

Chris Brady

Accordance gurus Martha Halladay and Helen Brown