Don’t miss the Regular Registration Rate for the upcoming 2021 Annual Meetings! Prices will increase on September 24, so register now to receive the lowest rate.

As governmental and medical recommendations may continue to impact your planning for the 2021 Annual Meeting, we are being as flexible as possible to accommodate the varying needs of members. We are pleased to offer both In-Person and Virtual Only options in order to allow everyone to choose their preferred way to participate. Go here to see more information about these options and to view online programs and virtual sessions that are currently being offered.

Access the registration page at 2021 Annual Meeting Registration. Regular registration rates will increase September 24 so register now for additional savings!

SBL, a membership organization with 8,000 scholars, is the oldest and largest learned society devoted to the critical investigation of the Bible from a variety of academic disciplines. Through its work, SBL supports scholarly research and fosters the public understanding of the Bible and its influence.

This year—every year—highlights the message that We Are SBL. We will release videos featuring the voices of members who tell their story of how the Society makes a difference in their work—stories that illustrate the diversity of scholars and scholarship in the Society of Biblical Literature.

SBL exists through the support of its members and volunteers. We encourage you to consider a gift of your service and/or resources. Thank you so much for your contribution, in whatever form it takes. Watch the first of these videos here. #WeAreSBL.

This summer, the Society released four pre-recorded webinars on pressing issues in the field: “Globalizing Biblical Studies in the Twenty-First Century,” “Disabilities Studies and the Bible,” “Africana Biblical Hermeneutics,” and “Horizons of LGBTIQ+ Hermeneutics.” We extend our thanks to the scholars who organized and participated in these timely discussions. Find the recordings for these important conversations here.

Please join us in congratulating the 2021 Outstanding Mentor Award recipients:

The SBL and its Committee on Underrepresented Racial and Ethnic Minorities in the Profession (CUREMP) are delighted to announce the 2021 recipients of SBL's Outstanding Mentor Award—Drs. Randall Bailey and Gale Yee. CUREMP launched the award in 2020 to honor scholars of color who provide exceptional mentoring to other scholars by helping them to develop important professional networks and offering invaluable support in the process of navigating intricacies of the guild. Bailey and Yee were selected for this inaugural award as a result of the nomination process and in recognition of the significant ways they are influencing the field of biblical studies through their scholarship, teaching, and mentoring of other scholars in various parts of the world.

Randall C. Bailey is Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Hebrew Bible at Interdenominational Theological Center (ITC) in Atlanta, where he taught for 35 years. He has also taught as Visiting Professor in South Africa and Brazil. He has served as Co-Chairperson of the African American Biblical Hermeneutics Group of the Society of Biblical Literature, on the Semeia Editorial Board, and on CUREMP. Bailey is the author of David in Love and War: The Pursuit of Pursuit of Power in 2 Samuel 10-12, as well as many essays and articles. He is the co-editor of They Were All Together in One Place? Toward Minority Biblical Criticism; Yet with a Steady Beat: Contemporary U.S. Afrocentric Biblical Interpretation; The Africana Bible: Reading Israel's Scriptures from Africa and the African Diaspora; The Recovery of Black Presence: An Interdisciplinary Exploration. He has also edited two collections and was Guest Editor of volumes of the The Journal of the Interdenominational Theological Center (devoted to the writings of young Black biblical scholars). As an ideological critic, his writings have focused on the intersectionalities of race/ethnicity, gender, class, sexualities and power in the biblical texts and their interpreters. At ITC, Bailey mentored dozens of students, who have been accepted into graduate programs, earned PhDs or ThDs and are teaching in seminaries and universities around the world.

Gale A. Yee is Nancy W. King Professor of Biblical Studies emerita, Episcopal Divinity School. She is the author of Poor Banished Children of Eve: Woman as Evil in the Hebrew Bible; Jewish Feasts and the Gospel of John; Composition and Tradition in the Book of Hosea; “The Book of Hosea” commentary in The New Interpreters Bible. Vol. VII, as well as many articles and essays. She is the editor of Judges and Method: New Approaches in Biblical Studies, which is now in its second edition (2007), a co-editor for the Texts@Context series, the Fortress Commentary on the Old Testament and Apocrypha (2014), and The Hebrew Bible: Feminist and Intersectional Perspectives (2018) for Fortress Press,and former General Editor of Semeia Studies. A new book is coming out in the fall: Towards and Asian American Biblical Hermeneutics: An Intersectional Anthology (Cascade Books). In 2019, she was president of the Society of Biblical Literature. She was awarded an honorary Doctor of Divinity from Virginia Theological Seminary in 2020. She lives at Pilgrim Place, a retirement community in Claremont, CA, known for its social activism.

We are pleased to announce that Eric Harvey has been awarded a 2021 ACLS Emerging Voices Fellowship. The Emerging Voice Fellowship awards recent PhDs in the humanities or humanistic social sciences a one-year position at a select institution in ACLS’s Research University Consortium. Congratulations on this award, Dr. Eric Harvey!

Paperback • Hardcover • E-book

The Art of Biblical Interpretation: Visual Portrayals of Scriptural Narratives

Heidi J. Hornik, Ian Boxall, and Bobbi Dykema, editors

For centuries Christians have engaged their sacred texts as much through the visual as through the written word. Yet until recent decades, the academic disciplines of biblical studies and art history largely worked independently. This richly illustrated volume bridges that gap with the interdisciplinary work of biblical scholars and art historians. Focusing on the visualization of biblical characters from both the Old and New Testaments, essays illustrate the potential of such collaboration for a deeper understanding of the Bible and its visual reception.

Paperback • Hardcover• E-book

Amazon Purchases: Thank you to all our Amazon Smile supporters! If you haven’t signed up, just go to https://smile.amazon.com/ and choose Society of Biblical Literature as your charity of choice. Then make all of your future Amazon purchases via amazonsmile.com and they will donate a percentage of your purchase to us. It costs you nothing extra. This is a great time of year to sign up, since all our small purchases add up!

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