Last week I was attended two national conferences in Atlanta: The American Schools of Oriental Research (ASOR) and the Society of Biblical Literature (SBL). I presented a paper at ASOR on the ways that archaeology and archaeologists are presented in the cinematic arts. My presentation was in Keynote and included several quicktime movies. While it wasn't meant to be the most erudite of papers, it was very entertaining and informative, and several people afterwards commented that it was their favorite paper that year at ASOR, and about 20 people asked for copies to show to their students. I put a great deal of time into that presentation, and it was gratifying to have others comment positively. A few hours after that presentation, I was awarded the Frank Cross award by ASOR. The award is "presented to the editor/author of
the most substantial volume(s) related to ancient Near Eastern and eastern Mediterranean epigraphy, text and/or tradition. This work must be the result of original research published during the past two years."

My friend and advisor Tom Levy gave me the award, and to be honored like that by my colleagues was the real high point in my academic career thus far. All in all it was a great conference. Now I've just got a couple of days before final exams. I've got to finish the student websites for THeo 2001 and create two final exams. I finished grading my Theology 1120 papers in which students applied a critical method to a biblical passage. They were OK papers, but the real highlight was that only one student plagiarized, and this was only slightly. This has been such a severe problem in the past, maybe word is out that I check on the web for this. Anyway, back to the grindstone.