The Annual SBL International meetings will be held at St Andrews, Scotland. As usual numerous sessions will be devoted to subjects of interest for Second Temple and New Testament Studies.

Here are some the listed groups. For more information, see http://www.sbl-site.org/meetings/internationalmeeting.aspx

APOCALYPTIC LITERATURE (Chair: Anathea Portier-Young)

Description: The Apocalyptic Literature Section provides the International Meeting’s only general forum for studies related to apocalyptic literature. The Section welcomes papers that engage the wide range of apocalyptic texts, that provide analysis of the history and conventions of apocalyptic literature, and that employ diverse methodological perspectives.

Call for papers: The Apocalyptic Literature Unit will hold an invited panel on “Ancient Jewish Apocalyptic Texts and Traditions in the Slavonic Milieux”. In addition, we invite papers in the following areas: 1) We invite papers on all aspects of the study of ancient apocalyptic literature, using diverse methodologies. In celebration of our host institution, we encourage proposals that engage the legacy of scholars whose work at the University of St. Andrews has made significant contributions to the study of ancient apocalyptic literature, including Matthew Black and Richard Bauckham. We also encourage proposals that explore apocalyptic texts from interpretive perspectives that have been traditionally under-represented in the academy, including African, African-American, Asian, Asian-American, Latina/o, Pacific Islander, and Post-colonial hermeneutical approaches. 2) We invite proposals on spatial dimensions of apocalyptic literature, with particular attention to the construction of imagined spaces and boundaries and the relation between apocalyptic spaces and particular places. 3) The Apocalyptic Literature Unit and Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha Unit invite proposals for a Joint Session on “Heavenly Bodies.” This session is a continuation of our shared work on the theme of “bodies” as we examined “Monstrous Bodies, Gigantic Bodies” in 2012. We invite papers using diverse methodologies on the subject of God’s body or bodies as well as those of angels, spirits, stars, planets, and other celestial beings in ancient Jewish apocalyptic literature, apocrypha, and pseudepigrapha.

APOCRYPHA AND PSEUDEPIGRAPHA (Chairs: Kelley N. Coblentz Bautch and Tobias Nicklas)

Description: The Section fosters ongoing study of extra-canonical texts, as subjects of literary and philological investigation; as evidence for the history of religion, theology, and cult practice; and as documents of the socio-symbolic construction of traditions along lines of class and gender.

Call for papers: The Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha Section is pleased to announce our Call for Papers for the 2013 meeting at St. Andrews. For this year’s meeting we feature four sessions. 1) The Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha Section solicits papers that take up the theme “Lived Religious Experience and the Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha.” Papers could examine, for example, how apocryphal, deuterocanonical and pseudepigraphal texts have been engaged liturgically or textually or utilized by a distinct community or within a particular context. 2) This section also hosts an open session for scholars who are undertaking critical work and new projects that are sufficiently developed. Presenters should be prepared to complement their presentations with a handout or medium that demonstrates a clear thesis, control of the text and classical languages, and solid argumentation. 3) The Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha Section hosts a Joint Session with the Apocalyptic Literature Section on the theme of “Heavenly Bodies, Celestial Bodies,” a continuation of these sections’ work on the theme of “bodies.” We invite papers using diverse methodologies on the subject of God’s body or bodies as well as those of angels, spirits, stars, planets, and other celestial beings in ancient Jewish apocalyptic literature, Apocrypha, and Pseudepigrapha. 4) The Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha section is hosting an invited session that celebrates the publication of Old Testament Pseudepigrapha: More Noncanonical Scriptures (Eerdmans), the first volume of texts translated under the auspices of the More Old Testament Pseudepigrapha Project at the University of St Andrews. A panel of contributors to the volume discusses aspects of the new collection and its contribution to biblical studies and cognate disciplines.

BIBLICAL CHARACTERS IN THE THREE TRADITIONS: JUDAISM, CHRISTIANITY, ISLAM
(Chairs: Mishael Maswari Caspi, and John Tracy Greene)

Description: This seminar approaches biblical literature through its most famous and pivotal characters, for it is around them that the subsequent biblical story is organized and arranged. Moreover, these characters have come to enjoy a life and fame that extends well beyond the basic Old Testament, Miqra, and New Testament, and even into the Qur’an and Islamic oral and written texts. As was demonstrated at the recent Tartu seminar, Samaritan texts and traditions (unfamiliar to many) have a contribution to make to the seminar as well. Our work seeks, among other goals, to facilitate a meaningful and informed dialogue between Jews, Christians, Muslims and Samaritans by providing both an open forum at annual conferences, and by providing through our publications a written reference library to consult. A further goal is to encourage and provide a forum in which new scholarly talent in biblical and related studies may be presented.

Call for papers: This seminar approaches biblical literature through its most famous and pivotal characters, for it is around them that the subsequent biblical story is organized and arranged. Moreover, these characters have come to enjoy a life and fame that extends well beyond the basic Old Testament, Miqra, and New Testament, and even into the Qur’an and Islamic oral and written texts. As was demonstrated at the recent Tartu seminar, Samaritan texts and traditions (unfamiliar to many) have a contribution to make to the seminar as well. Our work seeks, among other goals, to facilitate a meaningful and informed dialogue between Jews, Christians, Muslims and Samaritans by providing both an open forum at annual conferences, and by providing through our publications a written reference library to consult. A further goal is to encourage and provide a forum in which new scholarly talent in biblical and related studies may be presented.