Academic Teaching and Biblical Studies

Adventist Society for Religious Studies

African Association for the Study of Religions

Most of the literature in African Religions has argued that indigenous religions depend more on oral traditions. Recent scholarship demonstrates the different ways in which texts and artifacts provide narratives for some religious traditions. We invite papers (or panel proposals) that will discuss disciplinary approaches in the study of African Religion and/or the Bible in Africa and the Diaspora.

General Instructions: Papers and panel proposals should address the creative approaches to the reconstruction of religious texts and/artifacts as well as the methods and theories used by scholars to study them in Africa. They should interrogate this theme from a variety of perspectives including gender, religious independence & scripturalization of ATR." Papers should demonstrate what is new, provocative and comparative in the study of religion and/or Biblical scholarship.

Suggested Categories: 1) Interdisciplinary approaches driven by linguistic or cultural influence to recent studies of African Religion. 2) Documenting context-specific ethnographic research in ATR that clearly demonstrate ‘learning from people’ rather than ‘studying them’. 3) Scripturalization of ATR 4) Theoretical models and approaches to the study of gender and religion in Africa including research from the Circle (Circle of Concerned African Women theologians). 5) Interpreting African music for the study of religion and social justice as an applied discipline. 6) Reproduction/Representation of African Religions in Popular Culture and how this could be studied. 7) Re-reading African cultures and ATR in Colonial Archives: A Quest for useful methods and theories 8) African Independent Churches and the construction of hybrid identities All submission should be sent to Lilian Dube, ldube@usfca.edu by 20 Mar 2011. You will be notified by 31 Mar 2011.

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African Biblical Hermeneutics

African-American Biblical Hermeneutics

We will offer one session that will be an open call for paper proposals that address any aspect of African American biblical research.

Another of these sessions will be an invited panel co-sponsored with the Midrash Section devoted to a critical discussion of the subject of Race in Rabbinic Literature, with a particular focus on Charles Copher's chapter ("The Black Presence in the Old Testament") in Stony.

Finally, we will co-sponsor a session with the Ethics and Biblical Interpretation Section on Stony.

Please consult the call for proposals in January to learn if there will be opportunities to propose a paper for one of these panels.

Ancient Fiction and Early Christian and Jewish Narrative

One session will primarily feature invited presentations on various methodological and theoretical approaches to the study of ancient narrative.

The second session will be open, although we would especially welcome papers that fall under the heading of "Unreliability and Ambiguity in Ancient Literary Texts."

Ancient Near Eastern Iconography and the Bible

The second session will focus on the topic "images of violence in iconography and text."

We encourage papers related to this broad theme and particularly papers exploring ideologies of violence.

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Anglican Association of Biblical Scholars

Applied Linguistics for Biblical Languages

One session will be devoted to Hebrew and look at both entry level and intermediate-advanced level classroom situations, as well as the practical questions of advantages and disadvantages.

Another session will be devoted to Greek with similar questions.

A third session will focus on Greek Phonology and Pronunciation. It will be jointly sponsored with Biblical Greek Language and Linguistics Section.

Persons interested in following the planning of the sessions and serving as volunteers for some of the demonstrations are requested to email the chairs to be placed on an appropriate email list for Greek, Hebrew, or both. All of these sessions will be arranged by invitation.

Finally, two special lunch meetings will be set up, one for Greek and one for Hebrew, where colleagues interested in pedagogical issues can meet each other in a friendly setting and speak in their shared language of interest.

Aramaic Studies

Archaeology of Religion in the Roman World

Archaeology of the Biblical World

Art and Religions of Antiquity

Session 1: "Dura: Art & Religion along the Trade Routes of Northern Mesopotamia." Dura-Europos provides a rare opportunity to study a rich repertoire of primary sources regarding the religious life of late ancient Mesopotamia. This panel seeks papers that focus on the local/regional practice of religion as it manifests in art and archeology

Session 2: "Open Session: Art and Religion of Antiquity." We welcome paper proposals on the art of any ancient religious tradition and especially encourage papers that address the use of art and material culture in service of religion.

Session 3: "The Materiality of Texts / The Word as Object." We will be hosting a joint session on this topic with both the Religious World of Late Antiquity and the Social History of Formative Christianity and Judaism program units.

(Please submit your abstract or paper to only one of the three units; all submissions will be considered jointly among the three.) We seek papers that explore issues that arise from the fact that, at some point in the development of sacred texts, readers become aware of them as material entities. How did this awareness affect their adornment, both inside with ornate calligraphy and illuminations, and outside with ornamented covers? How did this development influence ritual practices? What happened when lectionary habits of ancient scriptural religious traditions coincided with the production of texts as ritual objects? What happens to our understanding or even interpretation of text when it depends as much, if not more on the materiality of the text than on the words themselves? How does thinking about the materiality of ancient texts (and attendant technologies) provide insight into the development of ritual practices and other embodied ideas of the sacred?

Asian and Asian-American Hermeneutics

Assyriology and the Bible

Bakhtin and the Biblical Imagination

Bible and Cultural Studies

Bible and Film

1)Open session. We invite proposals that fit within our general consultation description: "Focuses on the critical analysis and interpretation of Bible/Jesus films and other films incorporating biblical themes or motifs in terms of the films’ biblical and extra-biblical content, cultural and historical significance, and ideology. Secondary focus on pedagogical use of such films, and the preservation, archiving, and digitalization of rare Bible/Jesus films."

2)We invite proposals that deal with wisdom/sapiential themes/motifs/texts in film (the 2009 Oscar-nominated film "A Serious Man" comes to mind here, but proposals need not be limited to this film).

3)We invite papers that relate specific film theories or theorists to biblical studies of film.

4) In a joint session with "John's Apocalypse and Cultural Contexts Ancient and Modern," and "Bible and Popular Culture," we invite proposals that will examine current films in popular culture concerning the year 2012. Although this anticipation is usually grounded in interpretations of the ancient Mayan calendar, proponents are often quick to link their expectations to biblical passages as well. There is an attraction to apocalyptic time and rhetoric that make them perennial favorites in United States' culture. The media and publication hype surrounding the year 2000 is a good example of how apocalyptic fear and anticipation can dominate popular discourse. By 2011, however, one might have expected that Americans were now in "normal" time where apocalyptic expectations were less dominant. This, however, is not the case. Such interpretations represent the flexibility of the apocalyptic imagination in spite of the disappointment that post-apocalyptic (post-2000)time inevitably brought.

Excluding the jointly sponsored session, proposals for Bible and Film will be forty-minute presentations, where up to 15 min. can be used to accommodate the showing of longer, illustrative film clips.

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Bible and Popular Culture

1) "Time, Spectacle, and Apocalypticism in Popular Culture" jointly sponsored with SBL's Apocalyptic Literature and Bible and Film sections. There is an attraction to apocalyptic time and rhetoric that make them perennial favorites in United States' culture. The media and publication hype surrounding the year 2000 is a good example of how apocalyptic fear and anticipation can dominate popular discourse. By 2011, however, one might have expected that Americans were now in "normal" time where apocalyptic expectations were less dominant. This, however, is not the case. In this jointly sponsored session we will examine current discourse in popular culture concerning the year 2012. Although this anticipation is usually grounded in interpretations of the ancient Mayan calendar, proponents are often quick to link their expectations to biblical passages as well. Such interpretations represent the flexibility of the apocalyptic imagination in spite of the disappointment that post-apocalyptic (post-2000) time inevitably brought.

2) ATBS and the "Bible and Popular Culture" section are co-sponsoring a session on Teaching the Bible with Popular Culture. Students are generally far more familiar with popular culture and its artifacts than they are with the Bible. Alternately, much of what they know about the bible is gained not by reading the biblical texts but by how biblical stories are transmitted via popular culture. In this session, we are looking for papers that suggest ways to capitalize on this dichotomy: how can popular culture artifacts be used to teach students about the bible and/or to spark their interest in reading more carefully or more deeply? We especially encourage presenters to go beyond reading a paper by including interactive or other active learning activities at the session.

3) This is an open session for papers that explore and analyze the relationship between the Bible and American popular culture.

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Bible and Practical Theology

I. Bible and Pastoral Theology: Interpretive Frames

We welcome papers that explore the hermeneutical framework for integrating the Bible and pastoral theology in different ethnic, regional, cultural, gender, and class contexts, including post-colonial, African-American, African, Latino/a, Asian, Pacific Rim.

II. Bible and Pastoral Theology: Contemporary Issues

We welcome papers that consider the intersections between the Bible and pastoral theology in addressing contemporary issues, for example, AIDS, bullying, immigration, poverty.

Bible and Visual Art

Bible in Eastern and Oriental Orthodox Traditions

Bible Translation

a) papers focusing on interdisciplinary translation issues and

b) papers touching specifically on the revision of Bible translations.

Those who have been or are actually involved in specific revision project and thus, would have “inside view” as well as those who want to offer a critical comparative study of the results of a revision process, are all invited to participate. Theoretical and or practical reflections on the very “raison d’être” of revisions are also more than welcome.

Bible, Myth, and Myth Theory

Biblical Criticism and Literary Criticism

Biblical Greek Language and Linguistics

The Biblical Greek Language and Linguistics Section will host three sessions at the 2011 Annual Meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature.

We are sponsoring a thematic session on "Discourse Markers," with invited papers.

Together with the Applied Linguistics for Biblical Languages Group, we are also co-sponsoring a joint thematic session on Greek phonology and pronunciation, with invited papers.

The third session is open to any presentation dealing broadly with the application of linguistics to the biblical Greek Language, consistent with the description of the Section.

All submissions are welcome. Students without a doctoral degree are required to submit the full text of the paper they will read at the time of submission.

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Biblical Hebrew Poetry

Session 1: “Inner Biblical Allusions and Poetry in the Book of the Psalms.”

We invite papers to discuss inner biblical allusions in the Book of the Psalms. We are concerned with three primary issues: (1) legitimating the allusions; 2) investigating how the allusions contribute to a particular psalm’s message, and (3) discussing how the allusions function through the psalm’s poetry.

Session 2: “Ezekiel’s Rhetoric and Poetry.”

This is a joint session with the Book of Ezekiel and we invite papers that explore Ezekiel’s rhetoric and poetry, e.g., papers that raise questions related to the differences between Ezekiel’s poetry and prose, topics dealt with only or mostly in Ezekiel’s poetry and not in his prose, etc.

Session 3: “Song of Songs.”

Papers are welcome that deal with any aspect of poetry dealing with this book; and

Session 4: General Session:

Papers dealing with any aspect of Biblical Hebrew Poetry are welcome.

Biblical Law

We invite proposals for one open session on any aspect of the study of biblical law (including work related to cuneiform documents, Dead Sea Scrolls and other Second Temple Literature, questions of pentateuchal criticism, legal history, gender analysis, social scientific analysis, and newer methodologies). Copies of papers are distributed in advance through the Section's website. They should be available by October 15, 2011 at: http://www.biblicallaw.net.

We also invite proposals for a session entitled "Priestly Law and Literature." This session will be held in memory of Jacob Milgrom, with the aim of following his model of closely engaging the legal, narrative, and ritual dimensions of ancient literature, especially the priestly texts of the Hebrew Bible. We thus welcome papers for this session that will focus on these three general areas in the Hebrew Bible, the broader ancient Near East, and Jewish texts of Late Antiquity.

In addition, we will convene one special book review session of invited papers reviewing David P. Wright, Inventing God's Law: How the Covenant Code of the Bible Used and Revised the Laws of Hammurabi (Oxford University Press, 2009).

Biblical Lexicography

This section will hold two sessions on issues of lexicography and semantics.

One will be devoted to a retrospective on the 50th anniversary of James Barr's Semantics of Biblical Language, for which speakers will be approached but proposals may also be made.

The second session is open to any proposals on topics of relevance to the lexicography of Hebrew or Greek (or other biblical languages).

Blogger and Online Publication

Book of Acts

The Book of Acts Section is planning three sessions for the 2011 Annual Meeting.

Session I is an invited session on the topic "Charismatic to Early Catholic: Reassessing the Ecclesiology of Acts" and will not accept proposals.

Session II is an open session and encourages proposals that suggest solutions to existing problems or that explore new strategies for reading Acts.

Session III is also an open session inviting proposals for papers testing the hypothesis of dating the composition of Acts to the second century.

Book of Daniel

Book of Ezekiel

(1) a closed session on “The God Ezekiel Creates” (the second of the three years of the project);

(2) an open session; and

(3) a joint session with the Biblical Poetry Section on “Ezekiel’s Rhetoric and Poetry.”

We invite paper proposals for the open session on any aspect of the book of Ezekiel. For “Ezekiel’s Rhetoric and Poetry” we welcome papers that explore the role poetry plays in Ezekiel’s rhetoric, e.g., papers that raise questions related to the contrast and/or relationship between Ezekiel’s poetry and prose, rhetorical functions of the poetry throughout the book or in particular sections, topics dealt with only or mostly in Ezekiel’s poetry and not in his prose, etc. All papers will be required in electronic form for circulation one month before the Annual Meeting.

Book of Isaiah

Book of Psalms

The Book of Psalms Section invites proposals for papers related to the study of the Psalter as a collection, to individual psalms, or to themes related to the interpretation of the Psalms. The Section particularly invites papers for the 2011 Annual Meeting related to the current staus of research on the Shape and Shaping of the Psalter. Gerald Wilson's volume on the editing of the Hebrew Psalter was published in 1985 and the Book of Psalms Group held its first sessions in 1989. The program will allow a retrospective view.

One session will feature invited papers on the topic and one session on the topic is open for proposals.

There will be one additional open session on the Psalms.

Book of the Twelve Prophets

We will also hold an open session and invite proposals that address topics and texts within the corpus of the Book of the Twelve.

Children in the Biblical World

Christian Apocrypha

Christian Theological Research Fellowship

1. Paper session—on the topic of “Thinking Theologically in a Digital Age“—what does it mean, how is it defined, what is its promise, what are its difficulties, etc.?

2. Two book sessions: invited participants to be confirmed

a. The Dictionary on Scripture and Ethics published by Baker, edited by Joel Green, with associate editors Jacqueline Lapsley, Allen Verhey, and Rebekah Miles.

b. Matthew Schlimm’s From Fratricide to Forgiveness: The Language and Ethics of Anger in Genesis published by Eisenbrauns

Christian Theology and the Bible

The Christian Theology and Bible Section is organizing three paper sessions around the topic of 'Life in the Spirit,' which will explore Jesus' experience of life lived in the Spirit and the ways in which our own experience of life in the Spirit may have been akin to his. Two of these sessions will present papers by invitation only, while the third will be an open session focusing on Galatians and Colossians.

Session 1: Jesus’ life as lived by the Spirit, or the Spirit in Jesus’ life. (Jesus' experience of the Spirit, and how it might have been akin to our own.) Papers by Invitation only

Session 2: Christological Controversies surrounding Nicea in light of Jesus' (and others') experience of the Spirit Papers by Invitation only

Session 3: The Spirit in Galatians and Colossians We welcome papers on the Spirit in Galatians or the Spirit in Colossians, especially those that pertain to Jesus' experience of the Spirit and how it might have been akin to our own.

Christianity in Egypt: Scripture, Tradition, and Reception

First topic: We are seeking papers on the theme of Biblical interpretation as it relates to Christianity in Egypt. Papers may address a genre of interpretation, text, or theme. Proposals that address the history of reception of a particular text or theme are encouraged. Studies of sources in Greek, Coptic, Arabic, Ethiopic, Syriac, Armenian, Georgian, or Latin that are relevant to the program's focus on Biblical interpretation are welcomed.

Second topic: Papers on any aspect (texts, artifacts, art, major figures, historical events, concepts) of Christianity in Egypt in the Roman and Byzantine periods are welcomed.

Chronicles-Ezra-Nehemiah

The first session is an open session; we invite papers on any aspect of research on Chronicles and Ezra-Nehemiah.

The second session will be a joint session with the Covenant in the Persian Period Consultation, with invited papers and respondents.

The third session will be focused on how Classical Studies informs approaches to Chronicles-Ezra-Nehemiah, with invited papers and respondents.

Cognitive Linguistics in Biblical Interpretation

Computer Assisted Research

The Computer Assisted Research Section will have two thematic sections.

The first thematic session is, "Fifty Years of Digital Biblical Studies." Since the late 1950s, biblical scholars have sought to leverage their study of the ancient world with computers. In the half-century since, they have solved many problems -- and created others. This session invites presentations on any aspect of that history, commentary on current research and methodology or future prospects for digital biblical studies. Especially welcome are proposals from those who were participants in or eye-witnesses to the events of those years. Qualified presentations will be invited to be included in a volume of the proceedings to be published in Gorgias Press’s Bible in Technology Series.

The second thematic section is, "The Bible Software Shootout 2: Revenge of the Teachers." Software vendors are invited to showcase their products to demonstrate how their software is used by real teachers in the classroom, in course preparation, and in assignments. This can be for original language classes or in the instruction of English Bible. Qualified presentations will be invited to be included in a volume of the proceedings to be published in Gorgias Press’s Bible in Technology Series.

Proposals are also welcome in our twin areas of interest: computer assisted research and pedagogy.

Construction of Christian Identities

For the 2011 Annual Meeting our Section will be articulated into four sessions.

A) The Historical Jesus and Related Themes: A discussion on new books and ideas on the subject (invitation only).

B) When Was Christianity Born? A discussion on new books and ideas on the subject (invitation only).

C) Counter-cultural Identity Formation in Early Christianities. A discussion on how sufferance / servitude / death were elements for the construction of power structures and identity in early Christianities (session open to contributions).

D) Different Reconstructions of the Origins. A discussion on how early Christianities (e.g.: each of the different gnostic-Christian groups and texts, Jewish-Christian communities and texts, Justin, Pseudo-Clementine literature, Origen, etc.) understood and explained their own origins, with or without the adoption of funding and/or authoritative or exemplary figures and events of their past, including the interventions of supernatural powers (session open to contributions).

Contextual Biblical Interpretation

Corpus Hellenisticum Novi Testamenti

Covenant in the Persian Period

Covenant in the Persian Period is planning three sessions for the 2011 Annual Meeting.

There will be a session of invited papers to explore the concept of covenant in the Book of the Twelve with a primary but not exclusive focus on the prophets Haggai, Malachi and Zechariah. This session is being organized jointly with the Book of the Twelve Prophets section.

A second session will study the function of covenant in Chronicles, Ezra and Nehemiah. This session has been designed in coordination with the Chronicles-Ezra-Nehemiah section; while some of the papers are invited, there are also open slots and we welcome paper proposals on covenant texts in Chronicles, Ezra or Nehemiah.

The third session will be an open session; for this session we especially encourage paper proposals on covenant in the strata of Torah dated to the Persian period or in the wisdom literature dated to this period.

Cultic Personnel in the Biblical World

Deuteronomistic History

Development of Early Christian Theology

For the final year of our initial three year run, we will be sponsoring two sessions. We are unable to accept new paper proposals this year, but if anyone is interested in participating in this Program Unit in the future, or if you would like more information, please contact the program unit chairs.

Session 1: Paul and the Trinity

This session will investigate Paul's thought on God/the Father, Christ/the Son, and the Holy Spirit. We are interested in approaching this topic from a variety of angles: Does Paul have a Trinitarian theology (in any sense of that word)? How have new approaches to Pauline studies allowed us to recognize different dimensions of Paul's use of Trinitarian categories? How did Paul's theology influence later Trinitarian speculation? In line with the goals of this program unit, we are especially concerned to bring scholars from different disciplines into conversation with each other. This session will include specialists in Paul as well as experts in early Trinitarian thought and Patristic - era exegesis.

Session 2: The Old Testament and the Trinity

We will pursue this topic by investigating views of God present in the Old Testament and in Jewish monotheism. In line with the goals of this program unit, we are interested in bringing scholars from different disciplines into conversation with each other. This session will include specialists in the Hebrew Scriptures, early Trinitarian thought, and Patristic-era exegesis.

Didache in Context

Disputed Paulines

Early Christianity and the Ancient Economy

The Early Christianity and Ancient Economy program unit sponsors three projects:

The first project involves a study of all the major aspects of the economy in the ancient world, especially the Roman Empire.

The second project examines first-century early Christianity both in relationship to the ancient economy and in regard to its own economic aspects.

Both synchronic and diachronic studies are encouraged, as are contributions focused on specific issues (such as money, texts, authors, themes, and events). Paper proposals for all three projects are welcomed, especially those that make use of papyri, inscriptions, and other realia. Ideally, three sessions will be held in San Francisco, with one session devoted to each project. Those submitting a proposal should designate in the Abstract the project for which the paper should be considered.

Early Jewish Christian Relations

Ecological Hermeneutics

Proposals are invited for three sessions.

The first session will focus on ecology and the Pauline corpus and explore eco-theology and eco-ethics in relation to writings attributed to Paul. Proposals are encouraged to engage with the principles of ecological hermeneutics - suspicion, identification, retrieval (e.g., Habel and Trudinger, Exploring Ecological Hermeneutics, SBL 2008) and/or the methodology of the Exeter project (e.g., Horrell, Hunt and Southgate, Greening Paul, Baylor 2010).

The second session is open and will consider proposals on any biblical text. Proposals are encouraged to take into account the principles of ecological hermeneutics – suspicion, identification and retrieval – as developed by the Section in recent years.

The third session will be joint with the AAR Religion and Ecology Group and address issues raised by multi-religious critical reflection on the eco-hermeneutics of religious texts, such as biblical eco-hermeneutics.

Economics in the Biblical World

Egyptology and Ancient Israel

Session One: This session will be devoted to the notions of sacred writing in Egypt and Israel.

Session Two: Proposals are welcome on topics related to connections between Egypt and ancient Israel. Priority will be give to papers exploring the interaction between Egyptian and biblical narrative and textual traditions.

Ethics and Biblical Interpretation

Ethics, Love, and the Other in Early Christianity

Ethiopic Bible and Literature

1. Ethiopic Bible and Literature - Open Session: Ideology, Sociology and Literary Formation in the Ethiopic Tradition

The Ethiopic tradition bears as many marks of originality as it does marks of external influence. Influences come from Christian traditions—like the Greek, Syriac, and Armenian—but also from Jews and Muslims in the Horn of Africa. Ethiopian theologians and community leaders developed their own sense of identity and expressed these in their form of the biblical text (unique in form and extent) and in various works of literature. Proposals on any aspect are welcomed.

2. Ethiopic Bible and Literature - Issues of Method for the Textual History of the Ethiopic Old Testament Project (THEOT)

THEOT is a three-year project to reconstruct the textual history of the Ethiopic Old Testament. It will involve a fresh collation of 20 to 30 manuscripts for sample passages from each book of the Ethiopic Old Testament. Presenters will deal with issues of method for discerning families of manuscripts within the Ethiopic tradition and affiliations of the Ethiopic with other traditions. Some of the presentations for this session will be invited. Persons engaged in such work on Ethiopic or other manuscript traditions are invited to propose.

3. Ethiopic Bible and Literature - Ethiopic Manuscripts: Issues of Digitization, Cataloging and Access

Through the work of several projects, the inventory of images of Ethiopic manuscripts has grown dramatically in the last few years. The combined output of the projects is prodigious, but so also are the next set of challenges. Invited panelists will help provide an overview of completed work and clarify the issues that lie ahead. These include issues of best practice, technical specifications, access, sharing, collaboration, and the sociology of scholarship. Persons who have done the same or similar work are invited to make proposals.

Ethnic Chinese Biblical Colloquium

Eusebius and the Construction of a Christian Culture

Evangelical Philosophical Society

Exile (Forced Migrations) in Biblical Literature

Extent of Theological Diversity in Earliest Christianity

Feminist Hermeneutics of the Bible

In 2010, the Feminist Hermeneutics of the Bible Section will explore diverse trajectories within feminist interpretations of the Bible. There will be two open sessions to which presenters are encouraged to submit papers.

One session will be an open call. Presenters are encouraged to submit proposals in the general area of feminist hermeneutics of the Bible.

The second open session will focus on postcolonial feminist perspectives and interpretations of the Bible. The subject matter of this second session honors Kwok Pui-lan, who becomes president of AAR in 2011. Presenters’ submissions need not directly engage Kwok’s writings, but should demonstrate or engage postcolonial feminist interpretation.

The section’s programs will also have two invited panels. One will be sponsored by multiple program units and will engage the legacy of feminist biblical interpretation. A second invited panel will explore the topic of masculinities within the Bible and biblical world from a feminist perspective.

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Formation of Luke and Acts

Function of Apocryphal and Pseudepigraphal Writings in Early Judaism and Early Christianity

One session will be dedicated to papers exploring the Influence of the Martyrological Traditions of 2 and 4 Maccabees. This session will be largely pre-planned, but relevant proposals are still welcome for possible inclusion in the open session and in any publication emerging with this focus.

The steering committee would welcome proposals for a second session on “Humor in the Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha.” Papers in this session would explore examples of humor (parody, satire, comedic motifs) in this literature, how this literature reflects established conventions (e.g., Roman comedy), and/or what the presence of humor says about the purposes for composition, the ethos of the community in which the texts emerged and were read, and, especially, what windows open into the later Jewish and Christian communities that would preserve and refer to these humorous episodes in their own contexts.

Proposals for papers dealing with any aspect of the function of apocryphal or pseudepigraphic texts in early Jewish, Christian, or other communities are welcome for a third, open session.

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Gender, Sexuality, and the Bible

Genesis

GOCN Forum on Missional Hermeneutics

Gospel of Mark

Greco-Roman Religions

Greek Bible

1) A themed session entitled, “Greek Isaiah in Later Jewish and Christian Writings.” This program will include papers on the exegesis of the Greek text of Isaiah by Jewish and Christian authors prior to 300 CE.

2) An open session: For this program, we invite proposals dealing with any aspect of the reception of the Greek Bible. All papers accepted must demonstrate the use of the Greek text in distinction from the Hebrew Bible.

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Healthcare and Disability in the Ancient World

The Disability Studies and Healthcare in the Bible and Near East section plans to have three sessions at the 2011 meeting.

The FIRST SESSION will be an open session (accepting papers) on any topic on biblical scholarship related to disability and healthcare (broadly defined). All methods are invited.

The SECOND SESSION will also be an open session (accepting papers). In this session, we encourage proposals that examine the intersections between disability theory and queer theory in relation to biblical texts and hermeneutics. This session will be co-sponsored with the "LGBT/Queer Hermeneutics" session.

Inquiries about these sessions should be addressed to either Sarah Melcher (melcher@xavier.edu) or Jeremy Schipper (schipper@temple.edu).

Hebrew Bible and Political Theory

Hebrew Bible, History, and Archaeology

The first session will consist of several invited papers devoted to the cultural phenomenon of magic in the literature of the Hebrew Bible, epigraphic sources, and the archaeological record of the southern Levant during the first millennium B.C.E.

A second session will be a panel of invited papers that will discuss Francesca Stavrakopoulou's Land of Our Fathers: The Roles of Ancestor Veneration in Biblical Land Claims (T&T Clark, 2010).

The third session is open and accepting papers that address the history or archaeology of ancient Israel through the use of texts, archaeology, and anthropological approaches.

Hebrew Scriptures and Cognate Literature

Hebrews

Hellenistic Judaism

[1] "Jews of Italy," considering material and/or documentary evidence from the Hellenistic period to Late Antiquity, with a focus on new finds and perspectives, and

[2]"From Hellenistic Judaism to Byzantine Jewry," including but not limited to Italy, considering trajectories of continuity and/or points of parallel among Greek-speaking Jews, Jewish literature in Greek, etc., from antiquity into the Byzantine Empire.

In addition, the Hellenistic Judaism Section will be organizing an invited panel on "Recent Books on Hellenistic Judaism," and co-sponsoring a session with the Philo of Alexandria and Hellenistic Moral Philosophy and Early Christianity groups on Maren Niehoff's Jewish Exegesis and Homeric Scholarship in Alexandria (Cambridge UP 2011).

In light of recent policy changes, we encourage students interested in submitting a proposal to contact the Program Unit Chairs in advance of the deadline.

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Hellenistic Moral Philosophy and Early Christianity

Historical Jesus

Historiography and the Hebrew Bible

History and Literature of Early Rabbinic Judaism

History of Interpretation

Homiletics and Biblical Studies

Ideological Criticism

Ideology, Culture, and Translation

Institute for Biblical Research

Institute on Religion and Civic Values

International Organization for Septuagint and Cognate Studies

International Syriac Language Project

Intertextuality in the New Testament

Islands, Islanders, and Scriptures

Israelite Prophetic Literature

Israelite Religion in its Ancient Context

For 2011, "Israelite Religion in Its West Asian Environment" seeks papers dealing with the religions of Israel and neighboring lands, as expressed through multiple disciplinary studies. These include textual, epigraphic and archaeological studies, gender studies, iconographic and art historical analyses, studies in comparative religions, ethnographic comparanda and more. Attention can be paid to the religion of the home and family, city and state, commoners, and royal and priestly elites. Graduate students must submit a completed paper, and include the name of university and program, faculty advisor and degree being sought.

The section also invites papers for a joint open session with the Sacrifice, Cult, and Atonement section. Entitled “Ancient Near Eastern and Mediterranean Expulsion and Purgation Rituals,” this session will feature four papers followed by a five-minute discussion each. A general discussion panel concludes the session.

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Jesus Traditions, Gospels, and Negotiating the Roman Imperial World

Jewish Christianity / Christian Judaism

Johannine Literature

John's Apocalypse and Cultural Contexts Ancient and Modern

Session Two: Revelation Matters The John's Apocalypse and Cultural Contexts, Ancient and Modern Group invites papers related to the theme ‘Revelation Matters: Ten Years after Reading Revelation in the Ruins by Steven Friesen.’ Using Friesen’s work as a starting point, submissions should engage the role of material culture in understanding the Book of Revelation and its significance. How has attention to the artifacts, spaces and places of the Roman world shaped our understanding of this text and how might this methodological impulse continue to influence our critical understanding of Revelation?”

A third session will be a panel on recently published books on the Apocalypse.

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John, Jesus, and History

Josephus

Joshua-Judges

Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion

Karl Barth Society of North America

Korean Biblical Colloquium

Latino/a/e and Latin American Biblical Interpretation

Latter-day Saints and the Bible

Letters of James, Peter, and Jude

LGBTI/Queer Hermeneutics

The FIRST SESSION, cosponsored with the "Disability Studies and Healthcare in the Bible and Near East" section, seeks proposals that examine the intersections between disability theory and queer theory in relation to biblical texts and hermeneutics.

The SECOND SESSION, "Wisdom Literature through a Queer Lens," continues our genre series. For this session we encourage proposals that extend LGBT/Queer hermeneutics to the "traditional" (e.g., Job) and "arguable" (e.g., Song of Songs) wisdom texts from the ancient Near East, Hebrew Bible, Apocrypha, and Early Christian literature (e.g., the Epistle of James).

For the THIRD SESSION, "Teaching the Queer Subject in the Biblical Studies Classroom," we invite papers on the teaching of queer subjects and/or the use of queer pedagogies.

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Linguistics and Biblical Hebrew

Literature and History of the Persian Period

Manuscripts from Eastern Christian Traditions

Markan Literary Sources

Masoretic Studies

Matthew

Meals in the Greco-Roman World

Memory Perspectives on Early Christianity and Its Greco-Roman Context

Metaphor Theory and the Hebrew Bible

Midrash

Minoritized Criticism and Biblical Interpretation

Mysticism, Esotericism, and Gnosticism in Antiquity

Nag Hammadi and Gnosticism

National Association of Professors of Hebrew

New Testament Textual Criticism

Nida Institute

North American Association for the Study of Religion

Novum Testamentum Graecum: Editio Critica Maior

Orality, Textuality, and the Formation of the Hebrew Bible

Paleographical Studies in the Ancient Near East

Papyrology and Early Christian Backgrounds

Paul and Politics

Pauline Epistles

Pauline Theology

Pentateuch

Performance Criticism of the Bible and Other Ancient Texts

Philo of Alexandria

1) Open Call for Papers:

For SBL 2011, the Philo of Alexandria Group invites proposals for papers for one open panel session on any aspect of the study of Philo of Alexandria. We encourage proposals from graduate students and early career scholars as well as established scholars.

2) Invited Panels:

Another panel, consisting of invited speakers, will be devoted to a commentary in progress on Philo's De Confusione Linguarum (On the Confusion of Tongues). In addition, along with the Hellenistic Judaism Section and the Hellenistic Moral Philosophy and Early Christianity Section, the Philo Group is co-sponsoring a panel of invited speakers to respond to Maren Niehoff's forthcoming book, Jewish Exegesis and Homeric Scholarship in Alexandria (Cambridge University Press, 2011).

Polis and Ekklesia: Investigations of Urban Christianity

Postcolonial Studies and Biblical Studies

Poster Session

Poverty in the Biblical World

Prophetic Texts and Their Ancient Contexts

Pseudepigrapha

One session will include invited speakers who will treat the theme of death in relation to testamentary literature.

The second session will be an open session titled “Facing Death” for which paper proposals are requested. Papers might treat such issues as rituals relating to death, preparations for dying, potency of last words, martyrdom, responses to death, perceptions of time in relation to death and the dying process, or metaphorical conceptions of death.

Papers that use newer theoretical or methodological frameworks are particularly welcome as are papers that cut across the swath of Jewish Christian Greco-Roman cultures and literature in considering this theme. Paper proposals should include the argument or thrust of the paper, the primary texts treated, and the method employed.

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Psychology and Biblical Studies

We invite paper proposals on the theme: "Psychology and the Bible: Working Beyond the Academy." What practical applications might be made of psychological understandings of the Bible in congregational settings, pastoral counseling, in community work? Or, what might a psychological understanding of the dynamics of interpretation have to say to the Academy? What might psychologically "healthy" biblical interpretation look like?

We also welcome proposals for papers that address Biblical texts, themes, figures and/or readers and interpreters using the concepts and interpretive tools of any named field of psychology.

We also plan to review two recent publications in the field: Bas van Os' Psychological Analyses and the Historical Jesus: Explorations in Understanding (T&T Clark, due February 2011), and Dereck Dashke and Andrew Kille, A Cry Instead of Justice: The Bible and Cultures of Violence in Psychological Perspective (T&T Clark, 2010).

See our website at www.psybibs.org or contact the Chair, D. Andrew Kille, at psybibs@psybibs.org.

Q

1. Q Parables. Although Q is not particularly rich in parables, there are various examples of parables and parabolic speech. Papers will explore their role in Q.

2. Q as Narrative. This session will explore how recent application of narratological approaches to biblical texts in general might have implications for the study of Q.

3. Q Open session. This session allows for the presentation of papers on any aspect of the Q hypothesis.

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Qumran

Qur'an and Biblical Literature

Reading, Theory, and the Bible

Recovering Female Interpreters of the Bible

Redescribing Christian Origins

Religious Competition in Late Antiquity

Religious Experience in Antiquity

Religious World of Late Antiquity

1)Beyond the Sensible: Religious Objects, Perception and Power

Some of the objects with the greatest religious meaning or function in the religions of Late Antiquity were not perceptible by the five human senses, either because they were deliberately kept hidden, because they no longer existed, or because they were literally insensible - incapable of being apprehended through the body. What is the relationship between the importance of an object in ancient religiosity and its ability to be perceived? Were hidden objects regarded as more or less powerful than perceivable objects? Did formerly sensible objects, like relics, lose or gain power or authority once they were hidden?

2)The Materiality of Texts / The Word as Object

At some point in the development of sacred texts, readers became aware of them as material entities. How did this awareness affect their adornment, both inside with ornate calligraphy and illuminations, and outside with ornamented covers? How did this development influence ritual practices? What happens to our understanding or even interpretation of text when it depends as much, if not more on the materiality of the text than on the words themselves? How does thinking about the materiality of ancient texts (and attendant technologies) provide insight into the development of ritual practices and other embodied ideas of the sacred? Co-sponsored with Art and Religions of Antiquity and Social History of Formative Christianity and Judaism. Submit proposals for this session to only one of the three co-sponsoring units.

3) Material remains of violence

We invite proposals for a shared panel on the material remains of violence. Papers addressing the destruction and/or reuse of cult sites and the memorializing of violent acts through relics, objects, altars and tombs and spaces are especially welcome. Submit proposals to the Violence and Representation of Violence unit

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Rhetoric and Early Christianity

Rhetoric of Religious Antiquity

Ritual in the Biblical World

1) Ritual in the Biblical World will be sponsoring a special session on the cognitive theories of ritual and their explanatory potential in the study of biblical materials. The cognitive science of religion is a recent multidisciplinary field in religious studies, which has produced several new theories of ritual. (This session is not open for the call for papers).

2) A joint session with the Biblical Law Section on the theme: "Priestly Law and Literature" - This session will be held in memory of Jacob Milgrom, with the aim of following his model of closely engaging the legal, narrative, and ritual dimensions of ancient literature, especially the priestly texts of the Hebrew Bible. We thus welcome papers that will focus on these three general areas in the Hebrew Bible, the broader ancient Near East, and Jewish texts of Late Antiquity.

3) An open session on the general call for papers.

Romans through History and Cultures

Sabbath in Text and Tradition

Sacrifice, Cult, and Atonement

Scripture and Paul

Scripture in Early Judaism and Christianity

Second Corinthians: Pauline Theology in the Making

Semiotics and Exegesis

1. AN INVITED PANEL will discuss how biblical studies have changed since the publication of "What is Structural Exegesis?"

2. CALL FOR PAPERS: An Open Session is accepting proposals (or completed papers from students) which further explore some aspect of structural exegesis, or which are in dialogue with structural exegesis from the perspective of other semiotic theories or other disciplined approaches to biblical exegesis.

Please contact David Odell-Scott if you have questions regarding your proposal at dodellsc@kent.edu or call 330.672.0271.

Senses, Cultures, and Biblical Worlds

Service-Learning and Biblical Studies

Slavery, Resistance, and Freedom

Social History of Formative Christianity and Judaism

Social Sciences and the Interpretation of the Hebrew Scriptures

Social Scientific Criticism of the New Testament

Society for Ancient Mediterranean Religions

Our first topic, “The Book and the Rock: Textual and Material Evidence in the Study of Ancient Religion” will consider occasions in which an emphasis on written evidence might have led us to understand a religious phenomenon in one way that was subsequently modified, enlarged or overturned by archaeological evidence. Papers should treat concrete examples of such cases, while raising methodological issues about consonance, conflict, and complementarity where different types of evidence are concerned.

The second topic, “The Journey in Ancient Mediterranean Religions” will consider the role of both real and imagined journeys in ancient religions. Papers will cover such phenomena as pilgrimage, religious tourism, and mythological voyages of heroes and gods, and comparative approaches are particularly encouraged. Submitters of abstracts must be members of the SBL, but not necessarily of SAMR.

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Society for Pentecostal Studies

Society of Christian Ethics

The SCE will host two sessions in 2011 under the title “Spirit, Scripture, Ethics: Pneumatological Engagements with Knotty Ethical Issues.”

The first session will be comprised of invited papers.

For the second session, we invite proposals for pneumatological explorations of the intersection of Scripture and ethics. The primary focus may be either methodological or substantive. The topic may be approached from the side of either biblical studies or Christian ethics, but must foster conversation across the disciplinary boundaries. Each paper must give attention to the entailments of its argument for one particular ‘knotty’ ethical issue.

Submit proposals through the SBL website, and direct any questions or inquiries to sceatsbl@gmail.com.

Søren Kierkegaard Society

Space, Place, and Lived Experience in Antiquity

Speech and Talk in the Ancient Mediterranean World

Synoptic Gospels

Syriac Literature and Interpretations of Sacred Texts

Teaching Biblical Studies in an Undergraduate Liberal Arts Context

Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible

Textual Criticism of the Historical Books

The Bible in Ancient (and Modern) Media

Theological Interpretation of Scripture

(1) Reading Revelation as Christian Scripture: We invite papers that seek to engage specific texts or themes in the book of Revelation that bear directly on central aspects of Christian theology and/or practice. Potential participants should note that SBL now requires those without doctoral degrees to submit their paper (2000 to 2500 words) rather than just an abstract.

(2) Theological Interpretation and Jesus-Studies: What is the status of "Jesus studies" in theological interpretation of Scripture? This session will explore the significance of two recent attempts at identifying Jesus: Beverly Roberts Gaventa and Richard B. Hays, eds., Seeking the Identity of Jesus: A Pilgrimage (Eerdmans, 2008); and Darrell L. Bock and Robert L. Webb, eds., Key Events in the Life of the Historical Jesus: A Collaborative Exploration of Context and Coherence (Eerdmans, 2010). Participants for this session have already been recruited.

Information about the Group is maintained at http://sites.google.com/site/theologicalinterpretation/SBLGroup.

Theology of the Hebrew Scriptures

Transmission of Traditions in the Second Temple Period

Ugaritic Studies and Northwest Semitic Epigraphy

Unity and Diversity in Early Jewish Monotheisms

Use, Influence, and Impact of the Bible

Violence and Representations of Violence in Antiquity

Wabash Center for Teaching and Learning in Theology and Religion

Warfare in Ancient Israel

Wisdom and Apocalypticism

Wisdom in Israelite and Cognate Traditions

Women in the Biblical World

2. Open session. Proposals on women, their characterization and roles in the Hebrew and Greek scriptures are welcome, especially those that use feminist, interdisciplinary or multicultural approaches.

Writing/Reading Jeremiah

1) For a panel entitled, “How Do Feminist and Postcolonial Perspectives Change the Genre ‘Scholarly Commentary’? -- The Book of Jeremiah as a Test Case”: papers that address feminist or postcolonial method in the writing of commentary, with special reference to issues or texts in Jeremiah. For example, papers might articulate challenges and possibilities regarding how a commentator can address feminist or postcolonial issues in Jeremiah, reflect on ways in which commentary writing complicates feminist or postcolonial interpretation, or engage issues involved in the construction of the Jeremiah commentator's voice and authority.

2) For a panel on violence and aesthetics in Jeremiah. Violent and sexualized imagery has always been a part of religious representation -- not least in the writings of the biblical prophets. This panel will explore the relation/function of violence and aesthetics in the book of Jeremiah, and in particular, the aestheticization of violence. Papers are invited that analyze the reporting or depiction of violent acts in heightened prose or poetry in Jeremiah (such as the OANs), or that use Jeremiah as a "site" at which to address one or more of these questions: What is the connection between violence and art? Does violence inspire art? Does faith inspire violent imagery? Why does art chose to depict violence? How do depictions of violence function? Does art redeem violence?

3) For an open session: papers on any interpretive issue presented by the book of Jeremiah. Priority will be given to proposals that demonstrate a hermeneutical attentiveness that moves beyond, or seeks to complicate, traditional historicist interpretive paradigms.

Z 2012 Test PU

zTest Program Unit