Over the past few weeks I’ve been counting down the Top Ten Reasons you should plan to attend the Accordance User’s Conference in the Dallas area September 24-25. Here again are reasons 4 through 10, along with reason 3. Remember, today is the last day to pre-register at a 30% discount!
10. Hang Out with Other Accordance Users: See here for more.
9. Get to Know Accordance Developers: See here for more.
8. Go Light or Heavy: See here for more.
7. Get Personal and Practical Help: See here for more.
6. Try Before You Buy and Buy at a Discount: See here for more.
5. Get Up Close and Personal with the New iOS App: See here for more.
4. Discuss the Future of Mobile with OakTree and Olive Tree: See here for more.
3. Get Inspired by World-Class Scholars: As I explained in the interview I did for the Fort Worth Evangelical Examiner, our goal for the Users’ Conference is not just to offer Accordance training, but to inspire you to go deeper in your study of the Bible. Toward that end, we’ve enlisted the aid of two cutting-edge Bible Scholars who also happen to be gifted communicators (and Accordance users, of course): Dr. Martin Abegg and Dr. Daniel Wallace. Even those who don’t happen to use Accordance will find the conference worth attending just to hear them speak!
Dr. Abegg is the Ben Zion Wacholder Professor of Dead Sea Scroll Studies at Trinity Western University. Although discovered in the 1940s, the Dead Sea Scrolls remained largely unpublished as late as the 1980s. A doctoral student at the time, Dr. Abegg was able to reconstruct the text of these unpublished scrolls from a concordance of words in the scrolls. The publication of his reconstructed texts helped open up scrolls research to a much wider body of scholars. In the 1990s, Dr. Abegg saw the potential for computerized study of the scrolls and partnered with Accordance to develop electronic texts of the various Dead Sea Scrolls manuscripts. He will give a presentation on the relationship of the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Bible, and will be present during the entire conference for anyone who would like to meet with him.
Dr. Wallace is Professor of New Testament Studies at Dallas Theological Seminary and has written one of the standard textbooks on New Testament Greek: Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics. (Available as an Accordance module, of course!) As the Executive Director of the Center for the Study of New Testament Manuscripts, Dr. Wallace has led expeditions throughout Europe and the Middle East in search of New Testament manuscripts. He will give a presentation describing the Center’s work of discovering and photographing New Testament manuscripts in order to further New Testament textual criticism.
As I said, both of these men are extremely effective at talking about their scholarly interests in a way “the rest of us” can easily understand. You won’t want to miss the chance to hear them speak and get to know them personally.
We’ve now covered eight of our top ten reasons to attend the Users’ Conference. Look for the last two reasons to attend in an upcoming post, and be sure to pre-register today.