Bible Odyssey

Any topics you would like to see Bible Odyssey address? Let us know at: bow@sbl-site.org

ACLS Competitions Open

The 2016-17 ACLS competitions are now open for many programs. ACLS offers fellowship and grant programs that promote the full spectrum of humanities and humanistic social sciences research and support scholars at the advanced graduate student level through all stages of the academic career. Comprehensive information and eligibility criteria for all programs can be found at: www.acls.org/programs/comps.

SBL on Twitter

@BibleOdyssey
shares content related to Bible Odyssey and biblical studies in general.

@SBLSite
a combined channel for communication to SBL members from the SBL Professions, Congresses, and Membership departments.

SBL Calendar

A listing of worldwide events of interest to biblical and religious studies scholars.

Barnes Tatum (1938-2016) 

Jack Bartlett Rogers (1934-2016)

In Memoriam page

SBL Membership and Subscriptions

Have you updated your member profile for this year? Profile information helps SBL better serve you and the academy; please keep your information up to date. You can see the results of last year’s report here. We are working on the data for this year’s report so do please fill out, or update your profile if you have not done so already.

As an active member of SBL you have online access to the Journal of Biblical Literature and the Review of Biblical Literature from our website. Simply login with your member number and follow the links to read Journal of Biblical Literature (JBL)  and Review of Biblical Literature (RBL).

Sneed, Mark R. Was There a Wisdom Tradition? New Prospects in Israelite Wisdom Studies         
Ancient Israel and Its Literature 23. Atlanta: SBL Press, 2015.

Darden, Lynne St. Clair. Scripturalizing Revelation: An African American Postcolonial Reading of Empire 
Semeia Studies 80. Atlanta: SBL Press, 2015.

Havea, Jione, Margaret Aymer, and Steed Vermyl Davidson, eds.
Island, Islanders, and the Bible: RumInations. Semeia Studies 77. Atlanta: SBL Press, 2015.

See all ICI Books

Visit the NEH at the Annual Meeting

The National Endowment for the Humanities offers grants to scholars and others engaged in humanistic research and teaching. Twenty-six grant programs support individuals, teams, and institutions doing work for other scholars, students, or the general public. Fundable projects include research for monographs, scholarly editions, preserving or digitizing archival collections, professional development for teachers, museum exhibits and documentaries. The NEH has a long record of supporting important scholarship in religious studies, including a variety of disciplinary approaches and religious traditions.

A program officer will be available at this year's annual meetings to talk one-on-one about grant programs and possible applications.

Visit the NEH booth (#825) in the exhibit hall or write Daniel Sack at dsack@neh.gov for an appointment.
More information on the NEH and grant programs is at neh.gov.

Support SBL with Amazon Purchases

Awards Open for Submission

As of October 1st, many of the award programs available to members of SBL will be open for submission. Check out the webpages of the SBL – De Gruyter Prize for Biblical Studies and Reception History, the Paul J. Achtemeier Award for New Testament Scholarship, and the David Noel Freedman Award for Excellence and Creativity in Hebrew Bible Scholarship. Details on opportunities to present at regional meetings and how to apply for a Regional Scholar Award are also available. Don’t miss this opportunity. Submit your application today!

The Digital Library of the Middle East

The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation has awarded the Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR) and the Antiquities Coalition a study grant to support exploratory research, community building, and technical prototyping for the Digital Library of the Middle East (DLME). The DLME would create an aggregative, single website with a well-organized metadata scheme, worldwide interoperability, and public access to collections featuring cultural materials from the Middle East. It would also serve as a shared inventory of cultural artifacts that includes detailed descriptions and images, and confirms objects’ ownership and legal status to encourage greater understanding of the region's cultural legacy and respect for the importance of the cultural commonwealth, while helping to safeguard a fundamentally important expression of our humanity. 
Over the course of the grant, the team will form Advisory and Steering Committees in partnership with local experts, academic colleagues, government and diplomatic officials, and librarians; study peer-to-peer cooperation between library and archaeological professionals, and between Research 1 universities and libraries and their counterparts in the Middle East and North Africa; and explore both new media and crowdsourcing options for cataloguing and description of collections.
For more information, please click here.
Sign up for updates on the Digital Library of the Middle East project.

2017 Regional Scholar Award Recipients

Congratulations to Carrie Elaine Duncan of Central States and T. Christopher Hoklotubbe of New England and Eastern Canada, the recipients of 2017 SBL Regional Scholar Awards. Dr. Duncan is Assistant Professor of Ancient Mediterranean Religions in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Missouri – Columbia, and her presentation was titled “Architectural Evidence for Christians in the Late Roman Army.” Dr. Hoklotubbe is Louisville Institute Postdoctoral Fellow & Postdoctoral Faculty Fellow in Theological Studies at Loyola Marymount University, and his presentation was titled “Civilized Christians among Superstitious Jews and Barbaric Cretans.”

San Antonio 2016

New Annual Meeting Workshop on Community Engagement and Digital Learning in Seminaries and Schools of Theology
Friday, November 18, 3:30-5:00 PM
35 slots, $15
In this workshop, we explore the role of video and how technology can be used in the seminary classroom to resource students, particularly in situations of distance learning. We discuss how storytelling and grassroots action around social issues can be used to create community engagement, including in the virtual classroom. How video can engage, educate, and inspire people to organize and act in their own communities will also be discussed.

If you have already registered for the meeting, contact us at annualmeeting@sbl-site.org to receive a form to add the workshop. If you haven’t registered for the meeting yet, you can add it in the online process at https://www.sbl-site.org/meetings/meetings_registrationAM.aspx.

Employment Center Candidates
You may now view the Annual Meetings edition of the Employment Listings at www.aarsbl.org! Once logged in, hover over Employment Listings to see the “AM Employment Listings Search.” Each institution interviewing at the Annual Meetings will be listed here. Updates display instantly, so you may refer to this version for new listings up to and throughout the Annual Meetings.
Please contact Employment Services with any questions (careers@aarsbl.org).

For more information about the Annual Meetings 2016, including travel information and frequently asked questions, please visit our Annual Meetings 2016 website.

2016 Online Program.

New Titles from SBL Press

Don’t forget to visit the Kindle Store and Google Play to search for available SBL Press and Society of Biblical Literature titles.

XV Congress of the International Organization for Septuagint and Cognate Studies: Munich, 2013
Wolfgang Kraus, Michaël N. van der Meer, and Martin Meiser, editors

The study of the Septuagint offers essential insights in ancient Judaism and its efforts to formulate Jewish identity within a non-Jewish surrounding culture. This book includes the papers given at the XV Congress of the International Organization for Septuagint and Cognate Studies (IOSCS), held in Munich, Germany, in 2013. The first part of this book deals with questions of textual criticism. The second part is dedicated to philology. The third part underlines the increasing importance of Torah in Jewish self-definition.

Foundations for Sociorhetorical Exploration: A Rhetoric of Religious Antiquity Reader
Vernon K. Robbins, Robert H. von Thaden Jr., Bart B. Bruehler, editors

As scholars develop innovative approaches to biblical interpretation, it is important to understand the foundations upon which these new approaches are built. This volume collects essays that represent intellectual milestones that are informing sociorhetorical interpretation during the twenty-first century. The essays are arranged into five parts: (1) Topos; (2) Cultural Geography and Critical Spatiality; (3) Rhetorolects and Conceptual Blending; (4) Rhetography; and (5) Rhetorical Force. Since biblical texts were written by embodied human beings who occupied distinctive spaces in specific time periods, it is important to have a set of tools that allows for a full-bodied interpretation. The essays in this volume help to show the importance of such a mode of reading and provide strategies to help interpreters perform their work in this manner.

Since Richard Laurence published the first English translation of 1 Enoch in 1821, its importance for an understanding of early Christianity has been generally recognized. The present volume is the first book of essays contributed by international specialists in Second Temple Judaism devoted to the significance of traditions found in 1 Enoch for the interpretation of the Synoptic Gospels in the New Testament. Areas covered by the contributions include demonology, Christology, angelology, cosmology, birth narratives, forgiveness of sins, veneration, wisdom, and priestly tradition.

Empirical models based on ancient Near Eastern literature and variations between different textual traditions have been used to lend credibility to the identification of the sources behind biblical literature and the different editorial layers. In this volume, empirical models are used to critique the exaggerated results of identifying sources and editorial layers by demonstrating that, even though much of ancient literature had such complex literary histories, our methods are often inadequate for the task of precisely identifying sources and editorial layers.

Follow handbook updates on the new SBL Handbook of Style blog

Do you have a question, comment, or suggestion about the SBL Handbook of Style, 2nd edition?
If so, please contact SBL Press at SBLHS2@sbl-site.org.