ASOR & SBL Stats & Awards

Here's a summary highlights I experienced at the San Diego conferences in November:

Number of ASOR & SBL lectures scheduled:

• 52 & 673

Number of ASOR & SBL lectures I attended in their entirety:

• 14 & 14

Number of ASOR & SBL lectures I attended portions of:

• 8 & 5

Percentage of available ASOR & SBL lectures I attended (fractional lectures counted as 0.5 each):

• 35% & 2%

Prices I paid for ASOR & SBL lectures:

• $125 (1 day) & $135 (3 days)

Gas + parking expenditures for ASOR & SBL:

• $53 ($33+$20) & $165 ($99+$66)

Prices-I-ended-up-paying for each ASOR & SBL lecture (fractional lectures counted as 0.5 each):

• $10 ($178/18) & $18 ($300/16.5)

Intangible value received for attending ASOR & SBL lectures:

• Priceless!

Autographs I Obtained:

• Anson Rainey


• Aren Maeir


• Bruce Zuckerman


• David Noel Freedman


• Hershel Shanks


• Jodi Magness


• Lester Grabbe


• Marilyn Lundberg


• Nili Fox


• P. Kyle McCarter


• Robert Deutsch


• Ron Tappy


• Shlomo Bunimovitz


• Steven Feldman


• Zvi Lederman

Other Friendly Scholars I Met (*=LMLK VIPs whose autographs I already had):

• Ann Killebrew


• Beth Alpert Nakhai


• Carolina Aznar


• David Vanderhooft


• Jane Cahill (*)


• Jim Davila


• Jonathan Lawrence


• Lisbeth Fried


• Oded Borowski (*)


• Oded Lipschits


• Robin DeWitt Knauth


• Steven Collins


• William Schniedewind


• Yosef Garfinkel (*)

Other Scholars I Saw But Didn't Have an Opportunity to Speak with:

• Chris Heard


• James Charlesworth


• Jeff Zorn


• John Hobbins


• Larry Stager


• William Dever


• Yuval Goren

Scholars I Hoped Might Be There, But Weren't (or if they were there, our paths never crossed):

• Alan Millard


• Andre Lemaire


• David Ussishkin


• Eilat Mazar


• Ephraim Stern


• Frank Moore Cross, Jr.


• Melody Knowles

Scholars Who Were There That I Wanted to Meet, But Our Paths Never Crossed:

• Andy Vaughn


• Bryant Wood


• Jeff Chadwick


• Joe Cathey


• Larry Herr


• Ruth Ohm


• Todd Bolen

[Note: I'm abbreviating my blog reports as "A" for ASOR or "S" for SBL in brackets below; so "A5" means "ASOR p. 5".]

Best "Biblical Archeology" Lecture:

• "Come, Let Us Meet Face to Face" by Zvi Lederman [A5]

Best Paper Toss:

• Zvi Lederman, into the lap of Hershel Shanks [A5]

People Who Believe ASOR & SBL Should Record Conference Lectures & Sell Them to Raise Funds:

• G.M. Grena [A3]

People Who Had Thought I Was Older Before Meeting Me:

• Hershel Shanks [A1]


• Steven Feldman [A13]

People Who Disagree with Lenny Wolfe's "Lame Bet" Argument Against Forged Seals:

• Robert Deutsch [A8]


• G.M. Grena [A8]

People Not Afraid to Be Seen in Public with Robert Deutsch:

• G.M. Grena [A1]

Most Interesting Disputes

• P.M. Daviau vs. Beth Alpert Nakhai [A2]


• Larry Stager vs. Aren Maeir [A9]


• P. Kyle McCarter vs. Christopher Rollston [A16]


• Aren Maeir vs. all the Zayit-session lecturers! [A16]

Scholars Who Read "David" in the Mesha Stela:

• Anson Rainey [S11]


• Chang-Ho Ji [A2]

Scholars Who Write For, But Don't Read, BAR Magazine:

• William Dever [A2]

Scholars Who Think the American Public Is Dreadfully Ignorant (unlike the public in, say, Copenhagen or Timbuktu):

• William Dever [A5]

Scholars Accused of Not Knowing a Canaanite Dialect If It Were to Bite Them:

• William Dever [S11]

Scholars Who Don't Believe Any Ancient Records of Horse Quantities:

• Anson Rainey [A3]

Scholars Not Proud of Most Tel Aviv University Excavation Reports:

• Anson Rainey [A5]

Scholars Who Believe "Everyone Knew Everyone" in Iron-Age Israel:

• Deborah Cantrell [A3]

Most Controversial Lecture:

• "Khirbet Kiafa: Biblical Azekah?" by Saar Ganor & Yosef Garfinkel [A6]

Best Opportunity Given to Excavate a Monumental Iron-Age Gate:

• Yosef Garfinkel [A6]

Most Passionate Objection to a Lecture:

• Shlomo Bunimovitz, in response to "Khirbet Kiafa: Biblical Azekah?" [A6]

Harshest Criticism Delivered in a Lecture:

• Jodi Magness, to Itzhak Magen & Yuval Peleg's published interpretation of Qumran [S3]

Most Embarrassed Scholar:

• Jodi Magness (after being asked by me for an autograph) [S3]

Best Compliment Given to a Lecturer:

• Anson Rainey to Uzi Leibner--"an awesome presentation" [A3]

Best Use of a Valley-Girl Adjective by a Scholar:

• Anson Rainey "awesome" [A3]

Lecturer Who Used "Not" the Most in the Shortest Span:

• Christopher Rollston (9x in < 2 minutes) [A14]

Funniest Comment During a Lecture:

• Seth Sanders reacting to Ron Tappy's 5-minute-warning card [A15]

Unintentionally Funniest Moment During a Lecture:

• P. Kyle McCarter losing his place after mentioning "Hebrew national" (along with an intentionally funny recovery!) [A16]

Weakest Use of "Millions of Years":

• P. Kyle McCarter [A16]

People Who Know Radiometric Analyses Count Atoms, Not Years:

• Elisabetta Boaretto [A3]


• G.M. Grena [A3]

Best San Diego Museum Exhibit Related to the Bible:

• Museum of Creation & Earth History

Dumbest Bible-Related Museum-Exhibit Admission Policy in San Diego:

• Natural History Museum (the staff needs a few-million more years to evolve an intelligent policy)

Most Uncomfortable Conference Chairs in San Diego:

• Marriott [S8 & S12]

Best Hyperbole during the Conferences:

• Bruce Zuckerman, "elephant in the living room" (i.e., non-abecedary inscriptions on the Zayit Stone) [S5]

Worst Acting Performance:

• Nili Fox, "ouch" (stoic reaction to surgical removal of tattoos) [S7]

Most Annoying Remarks During a Lecture:

• Nili Fox (2; "literary nature" of Genesis, & "Deutero-Isaiah") [S7]

Lecture with the Most Attractive Ladies:

• "Daniel: Sage, Seer... and Prophet?" by Lester Grabbe (3--I had plenty of time to "see" them while waiting to get his autograph) [S8]

Most Unusual Sentence in a Lecture:

• "She's a really fine man!" by David Stein [S9]

Most Surprisingly Friendly VIP:

• Niels Peter Lemche (a really fine man) [S2]

Overall Nicest Person at the Conferences (no big surprise):

• Robin DeWitt Knauth [A13 & S10]

Scholar Who Used the Most English Words I Was Unfamiliar with:

• Anson Rainey (4: "preterite", "lexeme", "prothetic", & "syntagma") [S11]

Lecture with Best LMLK Content:

• "Storage Jar Transportation and Exchange Types in the Iron Age II Southern Levant" by Carolina Aznar [A7]

Total # of Unsolicited/Surprising Compliments I Received on My LMLK Research:

• 4 (Collins, DeWitt Knauth, Lipschits, Noel Freedman)

Things I Regret the Most (in order of occurrence):

• Not skipping out of part of the ASOR Zayit session to hear Steven Collins lecture on Tall el-Hammam


• Not reviewing my unpublished 2004 analysis of King Hezekiah's bullae before meeting Robert Deutsch


• Not scheduling an appointment to meet Andy Vaughn


• Not taking the time to stop by the AiG resources-booth (at ETS) while wearing one of my Creation Museum shirts


• Not inviting Jodi Magness to dinner (I had already embarrassed her once; why not shoot for 2?)


• Not being brave enough to ask James Charlesworth if he's James Charlesworth


• Not bringing a granola bar to Anson Rainey's lecture

Thanks to these scholars for posting comments during this blog series:

• Andrew Compton [S11]


• Kevin P. Edgecomb [S9]


• Owen Chesnut [A6]


• Peter van der Veen [A6]


• Scott Needham [S11]

Song of the week: "Friends With You" by John Denver (click the song title to visit Amazon; click here for a 24-second sample; 328kb).
G.M. Grena