Ancient Historiography Seminar – CSBS Program (28 May 2007)

Tyler F. Williams over at Codex just posted the lineup for the Ancient Historiography Seminar at the Canadian Society of Biblical Studies meeting, hosted at University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon (May 28).

What’s most interesting is that the morning session, where Kenton Sparks from Eastern University will be followed by Mark Smith from NYU and Jon Van Seters. At this past year’s society of Biblical Literature annual meeting in Washington D.C., Sparks gave a paper called “Israelite Ethnicity in Light of Ancient Jordan.” At the conclusion of his paper, Sparks tried to resurrect the ancient Shasu theory of a nomadic ethnogenesis of ancient Israel and went so far as saying that the current predominant model of Israelites as evolving out of the Canaanite culture was deathly ill. During the ensuing discussion it was Mark Smith and Jon Van Seters who were the most vocal detractors of Sparks’ theories.

While I had not contemplated a trip to Saskatchewan, it would definitely be fun to see the sparks fly….