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Scholars found friendship, criticism at colloquium
Annual scholarly gathering at Conception ends twenty-year run
by Dr. Christopher Anadale
A 20-year tradition at Conception Abbey came to a close in January, as the Old Testament Biblical Colloquium met for the last time in northwest Missouri.
The colloquium, founded in 1985 in Washington, D.C., attracted some of the brightest Catholic scholars of Old Testament studies. Since its founding, the group’s annual meetings were hosted by Conception Abbey, courtesy of colloquium member Abbot Gregory Polan.
In conjunction with this year’s meeting, Paulist Father Lawrence Boadt delivered the Patrick Cummins Memorial Lecture. Father Boadt is Professor Emeritus of Sacred Scripture at Washington Theological Union, as well as President and Editorial Director of Paulist Press. He and Abbot Gregory reflected afterwards on the colloquium and its twenty years.
The Old Testament Biblical Colloquium was formed in response to a desire for more scholarly interaction. “We started because there were not many opportunities for sharing people’s ongoing work,” Father Boadt said. Despite many conferences and presentations, there were few opportunities for sustained in-depth peer critiques.
Collegiality was also difficult because Biblical experts were so widely dispersed. Father Boadt noted that very few schools have two Old Testament scholars on their faculty. “Often, your only colleague is yourself,” he quipped. “So this was a chance for us to get together once a year and critique each other’s work.”
Father Lawrence Boadt, CSP, gives the annual Patrick Cummins Lecture to the assembled monks, seminarians and guests.
Photo by Gerald Curren.
Each meeting brought together nine or ten of the colloquium’sdozen permanent members, who came from universities and theology schools from the Midwest and East coast. Several Benedictines were members, as were scholars from schools of theology in Atlanta and Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Most scholars in the group were relatively close in age and at similar stages of their careers. At the colloquium’s founding, virtually all members had earned their doctorates within the previous ten years.
Participants brought some of their most advanced work to present for critique at colloquium meetings. Father Boadt estimated that more than fifty percent of the papers presented at the colloquium over the years were subsequently published as articles in scholarly journals.
The colloquium embraced a wide variety of approaches to Biblical scholarship. It included historical scholars, who research the background of texts, literary analysts, who study texts’ rhetorical and literary artistry, and scholars who focus on grammar and semantics. Some members were more sociological in orientation, asking how Biblical texts might be applied to women’s issues, for example.
(seated) Dr. Kathleen M. O’Connor (Columbia Theological Seminary, Decatur, Ga.), Fr. Lawrence Boadt, CSP (Paulist Press), Dr. Gale Yee (Episcopal Divinity School, Cambridge, Mass.); (standing) Abbot Gregory Polan, OSB (Conception Abbey), Fr. Leslie Hoppe, OFM (Catholic Theological Union, Chicago, Ill.; Provinical, Assumption Province), Sister Irene Nowell, OSB (Mount Saint Scholastica Monastery, Atchison, Kan.), Fr. Dale Launderville, OSB (Saint John’s Abbey, Collegeville, Minn.), Fr. Thomas McCreesh, OP (Providence College, Providence, R.I.), Dr. Mark Smith (New York University, NYC, NY).
Photo by Gerald Curren.
“It’s been very helpful,” Father Boadt said of the colloquium. “It would have been very helpful even if we hadn’t published. We come from different disciplines within Old Testament.” Working closely for a weekend with scholars from other specializations influenced everyone’s work for the better, he agreed.
“In a way it widens you. You see, I would only deal with the prophetic books and psalms and certain texts that I work with in the Hebrew language. But the colloquium exposes us to what other scholars are doing in the Old Testament field, so besides helping me do better at what I do, I also get exposure to what other things are happening.”
Father Boadt credited Abbot Gregory with making Conception home to the Colloquium’s regular meetings.
Abbot Gregory explained: “What happened was that in 1986, when we celebrated the centennial of the seminary college, Brother Thomas, who was the head of the Patrick Cummins Lecture series at that time, offered us a subvention,” or endowment, to defray the expenses of hosting the meeting at Conception. Participants then agreed to share equally any additional costs.
“Well, the group came here, and they enjoyed being out in the country and away from other distractions. After our first meeting in Washington, D.C., everyone dispersed in a variety of different directions after the presentations. But here there was a genuine sense of camaraderie and friendship that began to develop as we spent more time together,” Abbot Gregory said.
Father Boadt agreed that most participants welcomed the isolation of the country setting. “Interestingly enough, no one has ever rented a car from the airport, even though it’s a two hour drive. We have all allowed ourselves to be trapped by the hospitality here. No one feels the need to get away on their own or to do anything else. So it has been a very good experience, because it’s an intense weekend,” he said.
At Conception, colloquium scholars had the opportunity for closer fellowship, attending Mass and taking their meals together during the Friday to Sunday meetings.
After a twenty-year run in Conception, the colloquium is taking another direction. Some members are forced to limit their participation, finding themselves pulled away by responsibilities at their home institutions. The remaining members plan to continue meeting at another location, and to seek new members.
Father Boadt was philosophical about the colloquium’s final meeting at Conception Abbey. “Well, everything has a period in which its life comes to an end. But we’ve learned a lot of things and gotten a lot of benefit from it.”
Asked whether a group of younger Old Testament scholars might establish a similar group, Father Boadt replied with a laugh, “Well, they should.”
We welcome your comments:
communications@conception.edu
www.conceptionabbey.org
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