My wife and I have lived in the LA area for several years now, but today was the first time we attended the LA Times Book Festival. We had wanted to go all these years, but just now got around to it. So, we loaded up Declan and recruited my dad and had a tri-generational outing. It was good fun. Most of the booths had absolutedly nothing to do with my studies and I had no interest in buying any of the books. It’s not like heaven the book exhibition at SBL, but there were some interesting bits.

I enjoy perusing children’s books to get an idea of what I’d like to read Declan down the road. My dad and I were both interested in the comic book booths. Image comics has this trilogy currently under way called “American Jesus” (apparently being eyed for a film adaptation). It’s about an adolescent boy who observes himself performing miracles and realizes that he is the second coming of Christ. Now, that is some kind of coming of age story. Another graphic novel series–Age of Bronze–consisted of a “harmony” of various accounts of the Trojan War.

But the true highlight for me was arriving just in time to attend a session in which LA Times writer, Jonathan Kirsch, interviewed Robert Alter mostly on issues of the translation process. It was a little slice of SBL, but aimed at non-biblicists. The session began with an oral comparison of three version of the first day in Genesis 1: first, Alter read the Hebrew, then Kirsch read the KJV and Alter’s own translation. Alter explained how he tries to remain faithful not only to the words and meaning, but also to the syntax and poetry of the language. It was a brilliant and engaging discussion. Now it has me intellectually salivating for SBL this November!