By the second morning we were looking more and more like DaVinci’s Last Supper – with a Dunedin twist:

I challenge anyone to come up with a better backdrop to a biblical studies paper than this one. Here’s Judith McKinlay framed by a full bar:

As is Elaine Wainwright, obviously pleased by the prospect, or her paper (which was great) or both:

However, in the midst of all this intense study of the sources and reports (here, here and here) – note the careful attention to original texts – we were able to produce at least three breakthroughs:

1. After Robert Myles’s paper, we realised that the Greek term for ‘fishing’ should include a lexical entry under ‘cruising’ (in Mark 1:16-20). After all, what does ‘fishing for men’ mean but cruising?

2. After Elaine Wainwright’s paper a further lexical discovery was made. Not only is John known as ‘the baptiser’ or indeed ‘the immerser’, but he should also be known as John the Amphibian.

3. After desperately searching for the title for a paper on prophetic masculinity I need to present later this year, I drew on a range of great minds to come up with: ‘Too Many Dicks on the Threshing Floor, or, How to Organise a Prophetic Sausage Fest’.

Despite having a hand in the third insight, the two anchors of the Dunedin School were hard to please:

But James Harding (who rounded everything out with a scintillating discussion of David and Jonathan) was much more taken with them:

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