Århus Conference Preparation

I arrived safely in Århus, Denmark today after almost 11 hours of traveling, from coast to coast in Sweden, over the bridge between Sweden and Denmark (the Öresund bridge) and further to Jylland in Denmark. Luckily, the code to the guest house worked fine and the key to my room was in the envelope inside the door. I spent the first part of the evening with one of the participants, and the second part in my room rehearsing the paper, and cutting it down in the last minute. It is supposed to be 40-45 min, leaving 15-20 min for discussion. The ambiguous title is "Implications of Textual Criticism for Understanding the 'Original Text'." I will discuss the term "original text" and the question how far we can reach in the quest for this entity. The final words of the paper (at this point): "The reconstruction of the original text of the Gospels and the New Testament remains an 'impossible possibility'."

The paper will be delivered at 14.00 after lunch. Just before lunch Barbara Aland is speaking on "Textcritical Problems in Mark and Matthew. Recent Developments." My fear is that our papers will overlap too much, but perhaps after lunch when I give my paper people will have forgotten anyway, or else they will soon fall asleep.

A nice internet-connection in my room might yield more reports from Århus.