Name

The Society for New Testament Studies or SNTS, as it is commonly referred to in its abbreviated form, is a learned society. Its full Latin name ‘Studiorum Novi Testamenti Societas’.

Aims

The Society’s constitutional purpose is the ‘furtherance of New Testament Studies’.

Origins and History

A proposal to establish the society was first put forward at the Faith and Order Conference at Edinburgh in 1937 by Professor J. de Zwaan of Leyden, a letter was sent out to interested parties, and the first formal meeting to turn that proposal into a reality took place at Carey Hill, Selly Oak, Birmingham, from 14-16 September, 1938. A motion to found the Society was proposed by C. H. Dodd and H. G. Wood, this proposal was unanimously carried, and the first general meeting was planned for 20-22 September of 1939. As the first Secretary stated it in the initial Bulletin of the Society: 

We were well set for the raising of the curtain on the first full act of our play; but alas, instead September 20th saw us not in conference in Birmingham but shut up in our own countries, debarred from contact with one another by "the dread arbitrament of war ".

The Second World War interrupted its proceedings, therefore, and the society did not hold its first general meeting until 1947 in Oxford, after which it has met on a regular annual basis.

Read the most complete history of SNTS recorded by G. H. Boobyer here.