J. Christopher Edwards and the Scottish Universities Reception—Chris Keith

One of the highlights of the annual SBL meeting for me is the Scottish Universities Reception on Sunday nights. After the financial meltdown in 2008, all the presses and schools tightened their belts when it came to receptions and either canceled them or had cash bars. Being the imbibers that they are, the Scottish Universities maintained an open bar and, all of a sudden, that reception was one of the most popular ones. The last couple years it has been absolutely packed.

This provides for great conversation and the opportunity to meet new people and find out about new work. This year I had a particularly good conversation at the reception with John Edwards, Charles Huff, and Jody Otte. John’s published PhD thesis from St. Andrews has just been released by Mohr Siebeck in the WUNT 2 series. The title is The Ransom Logion in Mark and Matthew: Its Reception and Its Significance for Studying the Gospels, and you can find it here. Mohr Siebeck isn’t giving me a free copy for mentioning it here, but I hope they do. I say this shamelessly because I’m interested in this study. The Ransom Saying is interesting in itself, especially its verbatim re-presentation by Matthew, but I also think the reception-history trend in NT studies is a very fruitful one. I look forward to seeing how Edwards applies it here.