CONFERENCE UPDATE: Okay, I only have 15 minutes on this book-display computer, so let's see how far I can get.

The Early Jewish and Christian Mysticism Group had our annual dinner yesterday evening. Excuse a restaurant gripe, but our table arrived at the Ly Michael's at 6:45 when the place was nearly empty. Our starters didn't arrive until 8:15 and the main course perhaps 20 minutes after that, which made us late to our 9:00 pm events. The other tables around us also had slow service, although ours was the slowest. One of us left without eating and I was actually putting on my coat to go when my main course finally arrived. The food was quite good, but it wasn't worth the wait. If you're planning on having dinner there, don't plan on much else that evening.

Now that's off my chest. After that I went to the Harvard and John's Hopkins receptions, which were just around the corner from each other. This was well planned, because lots of us like to go to both. This put me in the vicinity of a remarkably high density of specialists in Phoenician, so I had the opportunity to ask them all a Phoenician related question that has been bothering me and one of them knew the answer. I'll probably blog on this once I get home and can look the relevant inscription up.

This morning I went to the Biblioblogging session. No time to summarize now. I'll try to collect my thoughts and say something later. I thought the discussion went very well.

After this I had lunch with Joe Cathey.

Then in the early afternoon session I went to the Early Jewish and Christian Mysticism session, which reviewed five books:

Jonathan Draper, University of Natal, Presiding
Review of Andrei Orlov, The Enoch-Metatron Tradition (Mohr-Siebeck, 2005)
Rebecca Lesses, Ithaca College, Panelist (15 min)
Andrei Orlov, Marquette University, Respondent (10 min)
Review of Kevin Sullivan, “Wrestling with Angels": A Study of the Relationship between Angels and Humans in Ancient Jewish Literature and the New Testament (Brill, 2004)
Charles Gieschen, Concordia Theological Seminary, Panelist (15 min)
Kevin Sullivan, Marquette University, Respondent (10 min)
Review of April DeConick, Recovering the Original Gospel of Thomas (Continuum, 2005)
Birger Pearson, University of California-Santa Barbara, Panelist (15 min)
April Deconick, Illinois Wesleyan University, Respondent (10 min)
Break (10 min)
Review of Daphna Arbel, Beholders of Divine Secrets - Myth and Mysticism in the Hekhalot and Merkavah Literature (SUNY, 2003)
Alan Segal, Barnard College, Columbia University, Panelist (15 min)
Daphna Arbel, University of British Columbia, Respondent (10 min)
Review of Ra’anan (Abusch) Boustan, From Martyr to Mystic: the Story of the Ten Martyrs, Hekhalot Rabbati, and the Making of Merkavah Mysticism (Möhr-Siebeck, 2005)
Michael Swartz, Ohio State University Main Campus, The, Panelist (15 min

I really must read a number of these.

My time's up.

UPDATE: Just realized that that restaurant did take 30% off our bills because of the lateness, so they do deserve credit for that.