First Person: Opryland = Orlando2

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How could they do it? No one ever thought that the organizers of the joint Annual Meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature (SBL) and the American Academy of Religion (AAR) could surpass the 1998 Disney World meeting in Orlando, Florida, for confusion and inconvenience.^a But they did it. Someone aptly described the AAR/SBL meeting this past November at the Opryland Hotel in Nashville as Orlando squared.

I missed half the papers I wanted to attend because I couldn’t find the meeting rooms. When I did find them, I was often too late. Many chairpersons opened sessions with congratulations to the audience for having found its way there.

Exceptional talent was required to create a setting as complicated and difficult to navigate as the Opryland Hotel, with its 3,000 rooms and at least 30,000 stairs and seemingly only three signs to direct you and no one to help you find your bearings. Nothing like this could happen by accident; plain chaos would clearly be less jumbled than this. With its huge indoor gardens, fountains and pools (you can even take a boat ride if you wish), the hotel is a magic kingdom—unless you want to get to a particular place. And it helps if you don’t eat regularly. If you do, expect long lines—up to an hour for lunch.

Then, of course, the audiovisual equipment was not in place, and presenters had to tell the audience what would have been on the screen if a slide projector had been there. Poor Ken Kitchen of the University of Liverpool, one of the world’s preeminent Egyptologists, carefully planned his slides for a 60-minute lecture, only to be told on arrival in the lecture hall that there would be no projector or screen. Fortunately, few scholars are as capable of drawing word pictures as Kitchen. But still, this kind of thing, which happened repeatedly, is unforgivable.

I did not meet a single person who had a good word to say about the facility. Why it was not possible to find this out ahead of time remains a puzzle.

Thank God for ASOR (the American Schools of Oriental Research), the premiere American organization of Near Eastern archaeologists, which held its annual meeting immediately before the AAR/SBL zoo at a lovely hotel in downtown Nashville that easily accommodated the 400 or so people who attended. The far smaller ASOR meeting was warm and friendly; it was easy to chat with old friends and make new ones. Even the lectures seemed helped by the environment.

The archaeological sessions at the SBL meeting continued to draw large crowds of Biblical scholars, however—which saddens me, because SBL’s break with ASOR has deprived Biblical scholars of much archaeological enlightenment. There was some talk of getting ASOR and SBL back together again, after four years of separation and hard feelings.^b But unless SBL and AAR can get their act together so that the meeting environment provides the setting for an enjoyable experience, I’m against it. I’d rather go to the ASOR meeting, filled as it is with archaeological riches. Most people whose chief interest is Biblical archaeology are likely to make the same choice.

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On the other hand, SBL did make an attempt to cover archaeology. How did it do? Not badly. In large part, however, this was because many stars who came to the ASOR meeting also spoke at SBL. If ASOR ever decides to hold its meeting at a different time from SBL, the SBL archaeological program could be decimated. Leading scholars and archaeologists who spoke at both the ASOR and SBL meetings include Anson Rainey, Israel Finkelstein, Nadav Na’aman, Uzi Avner, Shlomo Bunimovitz, Zvi Lederman, Aren Maeir and Carl Ehrlich. None of these people live in the United States. They would be unlikely to make two trips to this country in one year—and if they had to choose, they would choose the ASOR meeting (unless SBL gave them a travel grant).

If you wanted to hear people like Ann Killebrew, Jonathan Tubb, Michal Artzy, Shmuel Givon, Michele Daviau and Larry Herr (all from outside the United States) or Larry Stager, Eric Meyers, Carol Meyers, Sharon Herbert, Ken Holum and Tom Schaub (all from the States), you had to go to the ASOR meeting. They spoke only there. And this is only a partial listing.

In short, SBL is feeding off of ASOR, at least informally. If ASOR changed its time of meeting, SBL might still be able to mount sessions on archaeology, but it would be far more difficult.

Interestingly, on the Saturday and Sunday evenings of the SBL meeting, when the Biblical Archaeology Society had in past years mounted major plenary sessions that attracted hundreds of people, there were very few sessions. Many attendees, however, welcomed this; it left them time to go to the nearby Grand Ole Opry for the best in country music. Nashville does have its attractions.

How could they do it? No one ever thought that the organizers of the joint Annual Meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature (SBL) and the American Academy of Religion (AAR) could surpass the 1998 Disney World meeting in Orlando, Florida, for confusion and inconvenience.a But they did it. Someone aptly described the AAR/SBL meeting this past November at the Opryland Hotel in Nashville as Orlando squared. I missed half the papers I wanted to attend because I couldn’t find the meeting rooms. When I did find them, I was often too late. Many chairpersons opened sessions with congratulations […]