Strange Ironies

I haven’t posted all week due to teaching responsibilities and the MAR SBL Regional. While I hope to post some thoughts on the conference later, there were two ironic occurrences in my absence that I’d like to note.

1. I’ve been almost religiously following Eisenbrauns’ Deal of the Day sales, hoping to pick up some much loved volumes that I can’t pony up the normal cash to enjoy. While I was at the conference on Thursday, Textes Culinaires Mesopotamiens Jean Bottéro came and went at some 80% of the retail price. I’ve been looking for an excuse to pick this volume up, but the sale passed by while I was schmoozing with colleagues.
2. RBL posted a review of the English translation of Jean Louis Ska’s Introduzione alla lettura del Pentateuco entitled Introduction to Reading the Pentateuch (translated by Pascale Dominique). The review (available here) is by Reinhard Achenbach. The irony? the review of the English translation of Ska’s originally Italian work is itself written in German.