Bible Odyssey

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SBL Calendar

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

George E. Mendenhall (1916-2016)

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).

The Instituto Multidisciplinario de Historia y Ciencias Humanas (IMHICIHU) is a research institute created by the Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas (CONICET) in 2000. It is divided into four broad subject areas that bring together a wide range of specialities: Prehistory and Archaeology, the Ancient Near East, Geography, and Medieval Studies.

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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.

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Annual Meetings 2016

The Advance Registration deadline is this Thursday, August 18. If you haven’t registered, please register now before the rates increase.  To register you will need your SBL Membership number and a valid Mastercard, Visa or American Express card available.

Are you one of the 2,166 unique participants in this year’s program? Check when you are scheduled to present in the program online here. Or, if you are not a participant, search for sessions and units of interest.

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

Late Changes to Annual Meeting Program

• In general, the printed Program Book serves as the authoritative guide to the program. Changes resulting from cancellations and other factors often occur after the book has been printed (printing typically happens in early September). The online program will be updated to reflect such changes, but changes will be made only until November 1 (however, cancellations after this date will be noted).
• Changes to the program between the printing of the Program Book and November 1 will not alter the schedule of sessions, including the order of presenters within sessions and times at which they are scheduled to present. (Changes such as cancellations may be noted, but the schedule represented in the Program Book will remain unaltered.)
• Changes will not be made after November 1.

New International Meeting Program Unit Proposals Due Soon

Proposals for the International Meeting are due September 1. You will find more information on the proposal process, as well as the proposal form and list of criteria, here. The Annual and International Meeting Program Committees review program unit proposals and renewals and evaluate the distribution of topics and sessions among program units. New unit proposals for the Annual Meeting are due February 1 of the year in which the unit would begin.

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.

Resurrection in Paul: Cognition, Metaphor, and Transformation
Frederick S. Tappenden

Paul’s resurrection ideals are bodily ideals.  Too often, however, this statement is configured erroneously along literal and metaphorical lines; the realism of future resurrected bodies is disconnected from the metaphoricity of bodily transformation here and now.  Drawing on cognitive linguistics, this fresh and innovative study addresses this problem.  By eschewing the opposition of metaphor and realism, Tappenden explores the concepts and metaphors Paul uses to fashion notions of resurrection and the uses to which those notions are put.  Rather than asserting resurrection as a disembodied, cognicentric proposition, this book illuminates the body’s central role in shaping and grounding the apostle’s thought and writings.

Religious Competition in the Greco-Roman World
Nathaniel P. DesRosiers and Lily C. Vuong, editors

Scholars in the fields of late antique Christianity, neoplatonism, New Testament, art history, and rabbinics examine issues related to authority, identity, and change in religious and philosophical traditions of late antiquity. The specific focus of the volume is the examination of cultural producers and their particular viewpoints and agendas in an attempt to shed new light on the religious thinkers, texts, and material remains of late antiquity. The essays explore the major creative movements of the era, examining the strategies used to develop and designate orthodoxies and orthopraxies. This collection of essays reinterprets dialogues between individuals and groups, illuminating the mutual competition and influence among these ancient thinkers and communities. 

In Lydia as a Rhetorical Construct in Acts, Gruca-Macaulay explores the sociorhetorical function of the story of Lydia, a named Lydian woman ancient interpreters would have associated with cultural stereotypes of Lydians. As a rhetorical figure, Lydia both influenced and was influenced by the ideology of the surrounding text in Acts 16, as well as the approach Luke–Acts as a whole takes to people who are somehow like Lydia. 

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.