There were many good papers/presentations that were given by students and professors over the past two days.  The plenary sessions were quite informative and enlightening.  If I find time in the coming days, I hope to share a little of what I learned.  I would like, for the time being, to share some of Scott Hafemann’s and House’s thoughts during the Q&A section of the plenary sessions.

When asked about his relationship with Paul House, Hafemann in essence said the following,

I would encourage those of you who are in the unfornate situation that you are dedicated to the New Testament Studies to find an Old Testament partner, living or dead, and spend time reading them. Furthermore, spend 8 times as long reading Old Testament texts and material than you do in the New Testament.

House, in turn, echoed the same sentiments.  Both were trying to stress the fact that no scholar is able to do everything.  Yet, as scholars, we must not allow our fields of study to leave us in isolation.  This is particularly true in biblical studies.  If NT scholars pay scant attention to the Old Testament text, his or her scholarly endeavors will be, to put it lightly, seriously impoverished.  Likewise, OT scholars who interpret the text without reference to the NT’s interpretive use of the Old Testament, they might fail to understand the eschatological or teleological thrust of those texts, themes, motifs, etc.

This advice was particularly pertinent for me as I have yet to pick whether I will concentrate in the Old or New Testament.  Wherever I might find myself, and you find yourself, in biblical studies, we must not neglect either testament!