International Meeting Report

Feedback from attendees indicates that the 2013 SBL International Meeting in St. Andrews, Scotland was a great success, attributable to the university’s graciousness, history, and beauty, Kristin De Troyer’s thorough and creative planning, the work and perspective of our 100+ program unit chairs, and the dedication and scholarship of the participants. Over 150 sessions and numerous special events such as a coastal path walk and whisky tasting seminar attracted more than 850 scholars to the 600 year old university. We hope to see you next year in Vienna July 6-10. The meeting’s opening session will happen Sunday, July 6 and sessions will last through the morning of Thursday, July 10. Mark your calendars now! The call for papers for the meeting will open in October 2013.

Union News- AM Baltimore

We are pleased to report that the Hyatt Hotels and Unite Here announced that they have reached a national agreement that ends the global Hyatt boycott. Unite Here released this statement on 1 July 2013.

Annual Meetings

The Annual Meeting program is online here. See when you are scheduled or when the sessions of interest to you are scheduled. Please note that the schedule is subject to change. If you find an error, please write to Charlie Haws at charles.haws@sbl-site.org.

Did you miss the Super Saver rate for registration for the upcoming SBL Annual Meeting in Baltimore? Do not worry, there are still ways to save! The Early Bird registration rates are available now through August 15. Register Now and make plans to enjoy time with your colleagues in a great city.

Tyndale House and SBLGNT

Tyndale House, with permission from SBL, has added the text of the SBL Greek New Testament to the Scripture Tools for Every Person (STEP) project hosted at www.StepBible.com. The SBLGNT is one of many Bible translations and editions used in the project.

The Tyndale STEP program aims to provide reliable Bible software for those in underresourced areas of the world. The software has been developed especially for use by those who have unreliable or limited internet access, so although it is browser based, it can be downloaded and run locally and can be ported across to phone and tablet platforms. The free software is distributed via the Internet, and individuals are allowed to make and give away copies (though not to sell them!).  

Thanks to Tyndale House for making this software freely available to students and scholars everywhere, but especially for the availability in ICI countries! A web presentation can be viewed at www.tyndale.cam.ac.uk/STEP/STEP1.htm or view further details about the modules and ongoing development at www.Tyndale.cam.ac.uk/STEP.

SBL Website Redesign

We are working on a website redesign for 2014! If you have any suggestions for improving the site that you have been keeping to yourself, now is the time to let us know. Send ideas to sharon.johnson@sbl-site.org

Career Development

SBL and AAR have launched a new employment site managed jointly by the two organizations. The new site offers all of the services offered by the previous Employment Center, including the ability to list jobs online and to display candidate credentials and register for interviews.

To find job listings or submit a job, click here.

• Job Seekers: you will be asked to log-in with your SBL (or AAR) member ID. Your membership must be current and active in order to access the job listings.
• Employers: you will be asked to log-in with your institutional credentials, which have been communicated to you. If you have any questions, please contact careercenter@sbl-site.org.

Calendar

Click here for full calender

July 2013
7/22-7/25	SOTS Summer Meeting The Summer Meeting of the Society for Old Testament Study will be held at Bangor University, Bangor. More information
7/23-7/27	Studiorum Novi Testamenti Societas The annual meeting of the Society for New Testament Studies, the peak international body for New Testament scholarship and research, will be held in Perth, Western Australia, at Murdoch University. More information
7/29–7/31	The Decapolis: History and Archaeology ARAM Society for Syro-Mesopotamian Studies is organizing its Thirty Fiftth International Conference on the theme of The Decapolis: History and Archaeology, to be held at Oxford University. The conference aims to study the movement of nomads and their settlements in the Syrian Orient; and it will pay a special attention to the migration of Arab nomads from the Arabian Peninsula to the Fertile Crescent in the pre-Islamic period. The conference will start on Monday July 29th at 9am, finishing on Thursday, July 31st at 6pm. Each speaker’s paper is limited to 30 minutes, with an additional 10 minutes for discussion. All papers given at the conference will be considered for publication in a future edition of the ARAM Periodical, subject to editorial review. If you wish to participate in the conference, please contact our Oxford address:ARAM, the Oriental Institute, Oxford University, Pusey Lane, Oxford OX1 2LE, England. Tel. 01865-514041 Fax. 01865-516824. Email ARAM
7/30-8/2	EABS Annual Meeting Annual Meeting of the European Association of Biblical Studies Hosted by The University of Leipzig, Leipzig, Germany More information
August 2013
8/2- 8/4	OSBA 2013 Oceania Biblical Studies Association (OBSA) 2013 meeting will be held at the Pacific Theological College in Suva, Fiji.Call for papers is now opened and information for OBSA 2013 is available online at https://sites.google.com/site/wavesofthemoana/. The main conference theme is “What is Oceanic Biblical Interpretation?” The deadline for all paper proposals is June 30th, 2013. For further information, please contact Dr Nasili Vaka’uta (n.vakauta@auckland.ac.nz) or send an email to OBSAMail@gmail.com.
8/4–8/9	International Organization for the Study of the Old Testament (IOSOT) The 21st Congress of the International Organization for the Study of the Old Testament (IOSOT) will take place at the University of Munich, Germany. As usual it will be joint with the Congresses of the International Organization for Septuagint and Cognate Studies (IOSCS, 1.-3. of August), of the International Organization for Qumran Studies (IOQS), the International Organziation for Masoretic Studies (IOMS), the International Organization for Targum Studies (IOTS) and the International Syriac Language Project (ISLP). More Information
8/13-8/16	Identity Formation in the Gospel of Mark International Conference hosted by the Faculty of Theology, University of Copenhagen, Denmark. For more information contact Prof. Dr. Gudrun Guttenberger or Prof. Dr.Heike Omerzu.
8/29-8/31	British New Testament Society 2013 conference will be held at the University of St. Andrews. Details forthcoming. More information
September 2013
9/1	Call for Papers Deadline: Biblical Studies, West and East: Trends, Challenges and Prospects Conference hosted by the Department of Theology of the Ukrainian Catholic University. Abstracts are being accepted for the three panels: Current Methods and Approaches in Biblical Studies, Judaic Context of the New Testament, Hebrew and Greek Bibles. Indications of interest should be made as soon as possible with an abstract of up to 300 words and a short CV to Yuriy Shchurko. Inclusion in/and panels will be confirmed by September 3rd 2013 at the latest. More information
9/3-9/6	EASR Annual Conference The 12th EASR Annual Conference will be hosted by the Bristish Association for the Study of Religions at Liverpool Hope University, 3-6 September 2013. More information
9/19- 9/20	Biblical Studies, West and East: Trends, Challenges and Prospects International conference hosted by the Department of Theology of the Ukrainian Catholic University.  Keynote Speakers: EMMANUEL TOV, Hebrew University, Jerusalem; REINHARD NEUDECKER SJ, Pontifical Biblical Institute, Rome; JANUSZ CZERSKI, University of Opole, Poland; PETER DUBOVSKY, Pontifical Biblical Institute, Rome; PAOLO GARUTI, Angelicum, Rome / Ecole biblique, Jerusalem. More information
9/26- 9-28	Forbidden Texts on the Western Frontier: The Christian Apocrypha in North American Perspectives (2013 York Christian Apocrypha Symposium) The 2013 York Christian Apocrypha Symposium, “Forbidden Texts on the Western Frontier: The Christian Apocrypha in North American Perspectives,” will take place at York University September 26–28, 2013. The event is organized by Tony Burke (York University) in consultation with Brent Landau (University of Oklahoma). It brings together 22 Canadian and U.S. scholars to share their work and discuss present and future collaborative projects. The symposium is open to scholars, students, and interested members of the public; all may register for the event and take part in discussions. One of the goals of the symposium is to make the work of North American scholars on the Christian Apocrypha more widely known, not only to scholars in cognate disciplines (such as New Testament Studies or Medieval Studies) but also to students, who will be the future scholars in the discipline, as well as to the wider public who is interested in the texts but has been ill-informed about them through films, novels, and fringe scholarship. For additional information on the 2013 Symposium contact: tburke@yorku.ca or bclandau@gmail.com More information
9/30	Call for Papers The Leonardo Museum in downtown Salt Lake City has been chosen to host a major exhibit on the Dead Sea Scrolls entitled, “Dead Sea Scrolls: Life and Faith in Biblical Times,” November 22, 2013 — April 27, 2014. In connection with the conclusion of the exhibit, the museum is hosting an academic conference, “The Prophetic Voice at Qumran and Contemporary Communities.” The conference is co-sponsored by the Religious Studies Center and the Evans Professor of Religious Understanding at Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah. We plan to publish the conference proceedings. We are pleased to announce a call for paper or presentation proposals that address the theme expressed in the conference title. Topics may include the nature of prophecy at Qumran, the interpretation of prophecy at Qumran, the identification and status of Jewish prophets at that time, the authoritative prophetic voice at Qumran compared to contemporary communities or groups, text-critical issues regarding prophetic texts, and so forth. Proposals for papers and presentations may be submitted until September 30 to Professor Dana M. Pike at BYU’s Religious Studies Center at the following email address: rsc@byu.edu (please put DSS Conference in the subject line)
October 2013
10/4- 10/6	Pilgrims’ Progress: Pilgrimage across Time and Cultures The Institute of Pilgrimage Studies in conjunction with the International Consortium for Pilgrimage Studies invites abstracts for the 2nd annual Symposium to be held at the College of William & Mary, Williamsburg, Virginia. The conference will embrace thematic sessions including:Artistic and Literary Responses to Pilgrimage,Health and Pilgrimage,Material Culture of Pilgrimage,Pilgrimage in the Eastern Mediterranean,Pilgrimage in the Ancient World,Personal Reflections on Pilgrimage,Space, Place and Lived Experience of Pilgrimage. More information
10/9- 10/12	Changing Perspectives in Old Testament Studies: Past, Present, and Future An International Conference at the University of Copenhagen. The conference focuses on the major changes within the field of Old Testament Studies during the past 50 years. It is the aim of the conference to investigate those changing perspectives within a broader context of Hellenistic studies, theories of composition, theories of history, anthropology, archaeology, Ancient Near Eastern religion and comparative literature, Dead Sea texts and cultural memory studies, and to suggest future prospects for the discipline.More information
10/23-10/26	Westar Institute Fall Meeting The biannual meeting of the Westar Institute, advancing religious literacy through a twofold mission of fostering collaborative research in religious studies and communicating the results of scholarship to a broad non-specialist public, will take place this Fall in Santa Rosa, California. Critical questions to be considered include: Did Christianity begin with Jesus, Paul, Luke, or Constantine? Which came first, the Gospel of John or the Gospel of Luke? What did the first New Testament look like? How did the debate about rules and rituals shape Christianity? Does the date of Christian origins impact Jewish-Christian relations? Please inquire about student discounts at westar@westarinstitute.org. Program details and registration now available at: http://www.westarinstitute.org/national-meetings/westar-fall-meeting-2013/
November 2013
11/20- 11/22	John, Jesus, and History: Engaging the Legacies of C.H. Dodd and Raymond E. Brown The occasion of this pre-SBL conference at St. Mary’s Seminary & University in Baltimore is the 50th and 60th anniversaries of Dodd’s books on John and history as well as the ongoing significance of Brown, who taught at St. Mary’s from 1959 to 1971. The conference is sponsored by St. Mary’s and the SBL’s John, Jesus, and History section. The keynote address will be given by Jimmy Dunn. Papers and other presentations will be given by John Ashton, Alan Culpepper, Jonathan Draper, Craig Koester, Wendy E. S. North, Tom Thatcher, Jan van der Watt, and Catrin Williams, as well as Paul Anderson, John Donahue, Michael Gorman, and Jaime Clark-Soles. For further information, contact Craig Koester (ckoester@luthersem.edu) or Michael Gorman (mgorman@stmarys.edu). Registration begins June 1 at The occasion of this pre-SBL conference at St. Mary’s Seminary & University in Baltimore is the 50th and 60th anniversaries of Dodd’s books on John and history as well as the ongoing significance of Brown, who taught at St. Mary’s from 1959 to 1971. The conference is sponsored by St. Mary’s and the SBL’s John, Jesus, and History section. The keynote address will be given by Jimmy Dunn. Papers and other presentations will be given by John Ashton, Alan Culpepper, Jonathan Draper, Craig Koester, Wendy E. S. North, Tom Thatcher, Jan van der Watt, and Catrin Williams, as well as Paul Anderson, John Donahue, Michael Gorman, and Jaime Clark-Soles. For further information, contact Craig Koester (ckoester@luthersem.edu) or Michael Gorman (mgorman@stmarys.edu). Registration begins June 1
11/23- 11/26	SBL Annual Meeting The SBL Annual Meeting is the largest gathering of biblical scholars in the world. Each meeting showcases the latest in biblical research, fosters collegial contacts, advances research, and focuses on issues of the profession. The Annual Meeting will be held in Baltimore, Maryland More information