Eleven days ago I was going to call this post "Where I've Been: One Week Ago", but now it's already 2 weeks since I was making my way back from Cambridge. This has been one hectic spring. However, I've landed on my feet this Friday afternoon, and I have enough time left in it to write a quick post about my trip south before I have to dash off to a "retreat" in Glen Esk this weekend.

Cambridge is amazing. Or at least it is if you're into books. I'd heard about Tyndale House as the third best biblical studies library in the world, and as (according to the Duke of Edinburgh) the best kept secret in Cambridge. I've not yet been to the Ecole Biblique or the Vatican library, nor do I know Cambridge well enough to confirm or deny either of these claims. But I can say this: I was very glad to get a day desk at the Tyndale House library so I could read into the night, and have a home base for the week. The people there were kind and helpful. Yet impressive as its holdings are for a specialist library, its real advantage is in being just three blocks away from the Cambridge University Library, and with the Divinity Faculty Library directly in between.

I've never experienced anything like it. In the morning I'd read an important-looking source that I'd found the day before. In the afternoon, I'd dash from library to library, tracking down promising leads from the footnotes. In the end I spent a small fortune on photocopying, and I put my hands on dozens of books that I normally would have had to wait weeks to get through inter-library loans. I'm still a little dizzy.

I also spent part of an afternoon with the Damascus Document and a few other manuscripts from the Cairo Genizah. I was pleased that I could still read most of what I'd read with Jim Davila one year ago.

Of course, the whole purpose of the trip was to meet Brevard Childs, who was in residence there at the time. This privilege will almost certainly surpass the others in my memory. I've been a bit puzzled what to say about that afternoon in this post, though. I've decided to keep my comments rather limited.

Two things impressed me about his demeanor. First, he was impressively magnanimous towards scholars with whom I know he disagrees. Second, he remains a remarkably agile thinker for an octogenarian. In the end I felt I'd come into contact with an era of scholarship that no longer exists. He trained in Germany under that robust generation of post-war Old Testament scholars (he sat under both Eichrodt and von Rad). And more than simply offering reminiscences of days gone by, I sensed that I was in the presence of the person who keeps that tradition alive, probably more than anybody else still living.

The only other thing I should mention about the trip to Cambridge is the colleague who accompanied me. My thanks to Gary for making the trip lively and memorable in the evenings, at mealtimes, on the train, and for exploring the University Library's special collections in tandem.

OK, I'm off.

Tags: Personal, Childs, PhD