Freedman Award Winner Announced

The 2012 David Noel Freedman Award for Excellence and Creativity in Hebrew Bible Scholarship has been awarded to Yitzhaq Feder (University of Haifa). His paper is entitled, “Between Contagion and Cognition: Bodily Experience and the Conceptualization of Pollution in the Hebrew Bible.”

Travel Grant Winners Announced

Congratulations to the 2012 SBL Travel Grant recipients:

• Adekunle Oyinloye Dada – University of Ibadan, Nigeria
• Anna Kharanauli – Academy of Science of Georgia, Georgia
• Lalitha Jayachitra – The Tamilnadu Theological Seminary, India
• Antonio P. Pacudan – Union Theological Seminary, Philippines

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ICI Liaison Network

The International Cooperation Initiative's Liaison Network is getting underway. We are pleased to announce that the following colleagues have begun to serve as members of the Liaison Network. They will contribute to furthering two-way communication between scholars in their countries and ICI in order to facilitate greater collaboration:

Argentina: Juan Manuel Tebes
Brazil: Marcos Paulo Monteiro da Cruz Bailao
Cameroon: Ernest van Eck
Caribbean: Garnett Roper
Central Africa Republic: Joseph Nzita Mavinga
China: Jeremiah Meng
Croatia: Igor Lorencin
Czech Republic: Jan Roskovec
Estonia: Thomas Richard Kämmerer
India: David Joy
Indonesia: Martin Harun
Malaysia: Kar-Yong LIM
Pacific Islands: Younis Sadiq Masih
Peru and Bolivia: Teofilo Correa
Poland: Lukasz Niesiolowski-Spano
Romania: Mihai Valentin Vladimirescu
Russia: Valeriy Alikin
South Africa: Jaqueline (Jackie) du Toit
Ukraine: Taras Khomych

Tim Langille is working on establishing the Liaison Network. SBL members in ICI countries for which there is already a member in the Liaison Network are still encouraged to contact Tim to volunteer to further ICI and its goals. SBL members in all countries are asked to suggest colleagues in ICI countries who might be willing to participate in this initiative. The goal of the Liaison Network is to establish open lines of communication that will promote awareness of the resources and opportunities made available through the ICI to scholars, teachers, and students and to communicate and develop an awareness of the scholarly work done in ICI countries. The full list of ICI countries can be accessed here.

Meeting News

Annual Meeting
We have recently posted our Annual Meetings 2012 travel brochure on the website. This includes information on registration, hotel reservations, tours, workshops, travel tips and more. If you are interested in attending the Annual Meeting in Chicago, take a look! Register now and make plans to enjoy time with your colleagues in a great city.

International Meeting
Registration for the International Meeting in Amsterdam, The Netherlands is available online! Be sure to register now and make your travel plans.

The meeting, happening 22-26 July 2012 at the Universiteit van Amsterdam, is being held in conjunction with the European Association of Biblical Studies (EABS) and the triennial joint meeting of the Oudtestamentish Werkgezelschap in Nederland en België (OTW) and the Society for Old Testament Study (SOTS).

The Program Book for the 2012 International Meeting in Amsterdam is available online, here!

Regional Meetings
All of the 2012 Regional Meetings have concluded. Thanks to all participants and to those who put so much time and effort into making the meetings successful! Regional gatherings have long been integral to the Society's activities and its members' interests. If you have questions about regions or are interested in getting involved, please contact the Regional Coordinator listed for your region here. The states and provinces included in each region are listed on the region's webpage.

SBL Spring Book Sale- Two Weeks Left!

Almost all new, recent, and backlisted SBL and BJS titles are available to SBL members at a thirty percent discount during the spring sale.

Download the order form, then mail, fax, or phone your order by May 31.

If you prefer to order at the SBL Store, make sure to use the promo code SPG2012 at checkout to receive your discount.

The Society Fund

As the academic year comes to a close take this time to reflect on those who made a significant impact on your life. Give to the Society Fund in honor or memory of someone special. Thank you for your membership and gifts to the SBL.

Membership and Subscriptions

MEMBERSHIP: Optional Profile Winners: Every month, we randomly select two members from the pool of those who have filled out the Optional Profile for a free one-year membership. The May 2012 winners are:

David Kaczmarek
Gregg E. Gardner

As our privacy policy indicates, we will never divulge information from your profile to a third party. Thank you to all of you who have supplied this optional data. If you have not yet filled in the information (or you would like to update it), you may do so by logging into our website with your SBL Member number and going to the "my profile" tab, which will appear on the left hand side of the screen in the box where you logged in. While you are filling out the Optional Profile, please make sure all of your profile information is up to date!

SUBSCRIPTIONS: The Journal of Biblical Literature is the flagship journal of the field. It is published quarterly and includes scholarly articles and critical notes by members of the Society. Essential reading for over a century, it is now available online and in print.

In order to receive the printed issue 131:2 of the Journal of Biblical Literature your subscription and payment must be received no later than TODAY! May 15,2012. The subscription form can be found here. You will need to fax or email your form to the office. Our Fax number is 404-727-2419 or you may email the form to SBLServices@sbl-site.org. If you prefer, you may renew your subscription online, by logging into the website at http://www.sbl-site.org/membership/joinnow.aspx and following the directions.

The deadline for Subscriptions for the third issue of 2012 131:3 is August 15, 2012

The Review of Biblical Literature (RBL), founded by the Society of Biblical Literature, presents reviews of books in biblical studies and related fields. Appearing in digital form and in print, RBL is comprehensive, international, and timely.

• Comprehensive: RBL includes reviews of various topical studies, multi-author volumes, reference works, commentaries, dictionaries, bible translations, software, and other resources for the classroom and research. Multiple and contrasting reviews are often presented. The material reviewed and our reviewers come from varied academic, social, and religious perspectives.
• International: RBL provides a forum for international scholarly exchange and cutting edge innovations with reviews of German, French, Italian, and English books as well as reviews in those languages. Our editorial board includes members from across the globe.
• Timely: RBL produces reviews of the most recent titles in biblical studies.
• Authoritative: RBL reviews are written by the most qualified scholars available, whether a member of the SBL or the broader scholarly guild, and are vetted to ensure their quality by a highly regarded editorial board.

In order to receive the printed annual of the Review of Biblical Literature for 2012 your subscription and payment needs to be received by October 15, 2012. The subscription form can be found at:http://sbl-site.org/assets/pdfs/JournalSubscriptions.pdf.

You can print the form, fill it out and mail it with your payment or payment information to 825 Houston Mill Road, Suite 213 Atlanta , GA 30329. Or, you can fax it to 404-727-2419. If you prefer you can renew your subscription online by logging into the website at http://www.sbl-site.org/membership/joinnow.aspx and following the directions.

Jobs

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Writings from the Ancient World Supplement Series

It is with great pleasure that SBL Publications announces that Amélie Kuhrt has agreed to serve as editor of the SBL series Writings from the Ancient World Supplements. Amélie Kuhrt, FBA is Professor Emerita at University College London. She specializes in the social, cultural, and political history of the ancient Near East from ca. 3000–100 B.C.E., especially the Assyrian, Babylonian, Persian, and Seleucid empires. She was co-organizer of the Achaemenid History Workshops from 1983 to 1990. She is author of The Persian Empire: A Corpus of Sources of the Achaemenid Period (Routledge, 2007) and Images of Women in Antiquity (with Averil Cameron; Routledge, 1993). In 1997, her two-volume history, The Ancient Near East: c.3000–330 BC (Routledge, 1995) was awarded the annual American History Association's James Henry Breasted Prize for the best book in English on any field of history prior to the year 1000 C.E.

The visibility and prestige of the Writings from the Ancient World series has generated a demand for a related complementary series that is not limited to texts and translations. Rather, the Writings from the Ancient World Supplement Series will be publishing monographs, collections of essays, and revised dissertations on a wide range of topics pertinent to the Near Eastern world from the beginning of the Sumerian civilization to the age of Alexander. It intends to cover all aspects of Near Eastern culture, including art, architecture, economy, law, religion, society, literature, and history.

We at SBL look forward to working with Prof. Kuhrt to build the WAWSup series into a major academic resource for ancient Near Eastern studies.

Calendar

Click here for full calender

May 2012
5/15	Call for Papers Deadline Conference on Gender Studies at the Interface of the humaniora. University of Johannesburg is hosting the conference to provide a forum for interdisciplinary dialogue on the status of gender research within the Humanities. The intention is to bring together academics, researchers, students, and activists, to explore how women’s experiences in South African society have been structured, impacted, controlled or ignored. More information..
5/18- 5/19	Ephesus as a Religious Center under the Principate In honor of Richard E. Oster on the occasion of his 65th birthday. The conference will be held on the campus of Harding School of Theology in Memphis, Tennessee See facebook page for more information.
5/24- 5/26	RRENAB International Meeting The Réseau de Recherche en Narratologie et Bible (RRENAB) organizes an international Conference on the Role of the Reader in the Interpretation of Biblical texts. The meeting takes place in Louvain-la-Neuve (Belgium) from May 24-26, 2012. Papers and seminars are in French. More information..
5/25- 5/27	The Other Temples First Annual Conference of Hekhal: The Irish Society for the Study of the Ancient Near East Hekhal is an academic association established by four graduates and postgraduates of Trinity College Dublin. The society’s primary aim is to facilitate rigorous research in Ireland in the fields of Biblical Studies, Classical and Ancient Near Eastern Studies, Archaeology and Historiography, towards a more comprehensive understanding of the Biblical and Ancient Near Eastern worlds and their texts. The role of the temple cult is extremely important for Judaism despite Deuteronomic centralisation never being fully realised. As such, other Jewish temples may offer a fruitful area for discussing the development of Judaism in the Ancient Near East. We are therefore calling for papers dealing with temple ideology and its material culture in the context of temples other than the one in Jerusalem, whether those be real ones such as Elephantine, Leontopolis or Gerizim, or conceptual ones like the Qumran Yahad or the new Jerusalem in Revelation. The committee would hope to receive submissions on topics as diverse as diaspora Judaism, early Christianity, Qumran, early Samaritan studies, and any other historiographic and/or archaeological fields of research referencing these paradigms. More information on the society and the conference.
5/28- 5/31	Prophecy and Politics in Ancient Israel and in Ancient Cultures The Department of Biblical Studies at the University of Haifa is holding an international conference to examine the biblical prophets and prophecy in ancient cultures in general—within the geographical compass of Mesopotamia, Egypt and the Levant—from the beginnings of writing until the first century CE. The focus will be on the attitudes of ancient writers and readers to political-historical events. A one day excursion is planned: In the footsteps of Elijah, Elisha and the necromancer of En-Dor. More information will be forthcoming.
5/29- 5/31	International Conference on Religion and Female Body in Ancient East Mediterranean Sapientia College of Theology, Budapest, Hungary Informational Poster
5/31 – 6/3	Conference on “The Christian Moses” The Catholic University of America's Center for the Study of Early Christianity will host a conference in Washington DC on the topic of the "Christian Moses." Speakers will investigate how early Christians (to the seventh century CE) used traditions associated with Moses, along with significant Jewish traditions and early Islamic references to Moses. The conference will have a single-session format to encourage maximum interaction among all participants: speakers, local and visiting scholars, and graduate students. Call for Papers Deadline is December 31, 2011 More information
June 2012
6/5–6/6	Pastorum A Logos Bible Software event in Chicago, Illinois. Speakers to include John Walton, Scot McKnight, Pete Enns, Craig Evans and many more. More information
6/6 – 6/9	Trauma and Traumatization: In and Beyond Biblical Literature An international conference held at Aarhus University, Denmark. The conference is decidedly interdisciplinary, and aims to demonstrate how a highly developed expertise in interpreting Biblical and cognate literature is a substantial part of the overall discourse on the historical, literary, social, political, and religious dimensions of trauma in past and present. More information
6/13 – 6/15	Society of Asian Biblical Studies (SABS) The next meeting of the Society of Asian Biblical Studies will be held in Sabah, Malaysia from the 13-15 June 2012. Arrival the 12th and departure on the 16th. Kindly block these dates in your calendar and look for updates on the SABS website. More information
6/13-6/17	Annual Conference on the State of Higher Education Hosted by the American Association of University Professors at the Mayflower Renaissance, Washington DC. More information
6/18-6/20	American Association of University Presses AAUP 2012 will be held Holiday Inn Mart Plaza - Chicago, Illinois More information
6/27- 6/30	Orality and Literacy in the Ancient World X: Tradition, Transmission, and Adaptation The University of Michigan, Ann Arbor This iteration of the biennial conference on Orality and Literacy will consider the differences between oral and written transmissions, as well as their interactions. When knowledge crosses cultural and linguistic boundaries, does it matter whether it is transmitted orally or in writing? Are written texts always less fluid than oral performances? How should we think about the different kinds of writing as methods of transmitting information, from the wax tablet to the monumental inscription? The conference will include an excursion to Detroit and a session introducing Anishinaabemowin (Ojibwe) oral tradition, and an opportunity to visit the University of Michigan's renowned papyrus collection. For further information, please email Ruth Scodel
6/29	The Future of Biblical Interpretation: Responsible Plurality in Biblical Hermeneutics A one day conference, honouring Professor Anthony C. Thiselton Speakers (provisional): Anthony Thiselton, James Dunn, Walter Moberly, Robert Morgan, Stanley Porter, Richard Briggs, Tom Greggs, Matthew Malcolm To be held at the University of Nottingham. e-mail Matthew Malcolm for more information
July 2012
7/9- 7/20	Polemos/Pulmus: Ways of Confrontation in Judaism, Paganism and Christianity in Late Antiquity A summer course offered by the Central European University (CEU) in Budapest, Hungary.The course aims at exploring the nature and various ways of confrontation between and within Early and Rabbinic Judaism, the Early Church, and Pagan religions and schools of thought. The sessions discuss how these movements coped with conflicts within and without; what their strategies were in confronting and accommodating foreign ideas, competing religions, worldly powers or internal subversion; and what role these external and internal confrontations played in shaping them.Course faculty include Daniel Boyarin, Shaye J. D. Cohen, John M. Dillon, Mark Edwards and Guy G. Stroumsa. More information.
7/10- 7/13	Paul's Letter to the Galatians & Christian Theology University of St Andrews' Fourth Triennial Scripture & Theology Conference in St Andrews, Scotland Keynote speakers will be Richard Hays, George Washington Ivey Professor of New Testament at Duke Divinity School, Durham, North Carolina, Oliver O'Donovan, Professor of Christian Ethics and Practical Theology at the University of Edinburgh (New College) and N.T. Wright Professor of New Testament and Christian Origins, University of St Andrews (St Mary’s College). Major papers will be given by Jean-Noel Aletti, Lewis Ayres, John Barclay, Ivor Davidson, Beverly Gaventa, Bruce McCormack, Karla Pollmann, Volker Rabens, Thomas Soding, Kendall Soulen, Timothy Wengert & Simeon Zahl. Call for papers now open with the deadline for submission being 1 April 2012. We invite proposals for short papers that relate Galatians to Christian theology and culture including: Galatians and Art; Christian Doctrine; Ethics; The History of Interpretation; Eschatology; Jewish and Christian Readings of Galatians. Abstracts of not more than 300 words should be sent to galatians@st-andrews.ac.uk.  More information >>>
7/15- 7/20	The 8th Congress of the Société d’Etudes Samaritaines will take place in Erfurt (Germany), jointly organized by the SÉS and the Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg, Faculty of Theology. The Congress of the SÉS meets every four years and is the most important meeting of experts working in the field of Samaritan studies worldwide. Lectures may deal with any aspect of the Samaritan community, their contemporary life and living conditions, their history, their religion and their laws, their literature and languages etc. Scholars who wish to give a paper at this conference are invited to submit their proposal before 2nd January 2012. The proposal should state the paper’s topic, purpose, and main argu¬ments, to be evaluated for acceptance by the scientific committee of the conference. A lecture should not exceed 30 min (plus 10 min discussion). SÉS-membership is not required at the time of submitting. Junior scholars are especially encouraged to submit a proposal. Contact: Prof. Dr. Stefan Schorch Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg Theologische Fakultät D - 06099 Halle (Saale) Germany stefan.schorch@theologie.uni-halle.de for more information.
7/22-7/26	SBL International Meeting (ISBL) The Universiteit van Amsterdam will host the 2012 SBL International Meeting. SBL will organize this meeting in conjunction with the 2012 annual conference of the European Association of Biblical Studies (EABS) and the triennial joint meeting of the Oudtestamentish Werkgezelschap in Nederland en België (OTW) and the Society for Old Testament Study (SOTS). For more information
7/22-7/26	European Association of Biblical Studies (EABS) EABS meeting will be in conjunction with the International SBL meeting (ISBL). Registration and accommodation, as well as proposal for lectures, will all be done through the SBL site. More information
7/26-7/28	Colloquium Biblicum Lovaniense LXI International Biblical Conference Topic: Old Testament Pseudepigrapha and the Scriptures Venue: KU Leuven, Faculty of Theology Proposals for offered papers should be submitted to the president before April 1, 2012 President: Prof. Dr. Eibert Tigchelaar  Secretary CBL: Prof. Dr. Reimund Bieringer For more information please contact the secretary or check the CBL conference webpage.
7/31-8/4	Studiorum Novi Testamenti Societas Society for New Testament Studies (SNTS) is an international society of New Testament scholars from around the world. The 2012 annual meeting will be held in Leuven, Belgium. More information
August 2012
8/6-8/7	Summer Conference on ”Violence as an Ethical Challenge in the Bible” The Norwegian Summer Academy for Biblical Studies (NSABS) announces its first international meeting to be held in Kristiansand, Norway. Invited speakers are Joshua Berman (Bar Ilan University, Israel), Lennart Boström (Örebro Missionsskola, Sweden), Karin Finsterbusch (Universität Koblenz-Landau, Germany), Friedmann Eissler (Humboldt-Universität Berlin, Germany), Lars Olov Eriksson (Johannelunds Teologiska Institution, Sweden), Georg Fischer (Universität Innsbruck, Austria), Terence Fretheim (Luther Seminary, USA), Hallvard Hagelia (Ansgar Teologiske Høgskole, Norway), Dana M. Harris (Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, USA), Knut Heim (Trinity College Bristol, UK), Robert Hubbard (North Park University, USA), Årstein Justnes (Universitet i Agder, Norway), Gordon McConville (University of Gloustershire, UK), Kirsten Nielsen (Århus Universitet, DK), Kristin Moen Saxegaard (Church of Norway), Martin Webber (Evangelische-theologische Faculteit Leuven, Belgium), Tommy Wasserman (Örebro Missionsskola, Sweden), Karl William Weyde (Menighetsfakultet, Norway), Peter Wick (Ruhr-Universität Bochum, Germany), Markus Zehnder (Ansgar Teologiske Høgskole, Norway). The provisional schedule of the conference can be found here.
8/15-8/17	Gender studies at the interface of the humaniora University of Johannesburg is hosting the conference to provide a forum for interdisciplinary dialogue on the status of gender research within the Humanities. The intention is to bring together academics, researchers, students, and activists, to explore how women’s experiences in South African society have been structured, impacted, controlled or ignored. More information..
8/23- 8/26	Stockholm 2012: "Ends and Beginnings." The 11th European Association for the Study of Religions (EASR ) Annual Conference, Södertörn University, Stockholm with a Special Panel Session: Pentateuchal Mysticism? Ancient Israelite Priestly Initiation More information..
8/28- 8/30	Oceania Biblical Studies Association Annual Meeting will be held at the Sia’atoutai Theological College in Tonga. More information or OBSAMail@gmail.com

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