The 44th Annual Conference of the Association of Jewish Studies was held at the Sheraton Chicago.

The Conference included some sessions of interest for Second Temple Jewish Studies:

SECOND TEMPLE AND RABBINIC BIBLICAL INTERPRETATION AND THOUGHT
Chair: Chaya Halberstam (University of Western Ontario)
~The Theological Significance of the Abrahamic Covenant in Second Temple Literature
Ari Mermelstein (Yeshiva University)
~ When Angels Became Israelites: Angelic Condescension and Deliverance in Tobit and Late Second Temple Judaism
Phillip Benjamin Munoa (Hope College)
~ Tannaitic Genesis: the Extent and Scope of Early Rabbinic Exegesis on the First Book of the Pentateuch
Ryan S. Dulkin (Eden Theological Seminary)

RABBINIC-CHRISTIAN EXCHANGE
Chair: Zev Garber (Los Angeles Valley College)
~ Executing the Adulteress: Early Jewish Palestinian Traditions in Syriac Christianity
Yifat Chaya Monnickendam (Johns Hopkins University)
~ The Apocalyptic Messiah in Pesiqta Rabbati
Rivka Ulmer (Bucknell University)
~ When Moses Stopped the Sun and Jesus Defeated Amalek: Judeo-Christian Polemic as a Driving Force in Rabbinic Hermeneutics
Zev Israel Farber (Emory University)

IS HIGHER CRITICISM OF THE BIBLE OR NEW TESTAMENT A RESIDENT ALIEN, A DANGEROUS ENEMY, OR A NEIGHBOR IN JEWISH STUDIES PROGRAMS?
Moderator: Herbert William Basser (Queen’s University)
Discussants: Marc Zvi Brettler (Brandeis University)
Zev Garber (Los Angeles Valley College)
Frederick E. Greenspahn (Florida Atlantic University) Jason Kalman (HUC-JIR)
Martin I. Lockshin (York University)

JEWS AND ROME
Chair: Yehudah Benjamin Cohn (New York University)
~ What If the Jews Could Throw the Romans to the Lions? Jewish Violence and Roman Games in Ancient Cyrene
Loren R. Spielman (Portland State University)
~ Celsus’ Jew and the “Parting of the Ways”
Albert I. Baumgarten (Bar-Ilan University)
~ Mary and Rabbi Judah Ha-Nasi at Sepphoris: Christian and Jewish Appropriation of the “Ornament of all Galilee”
Stuart S. Miller (University of Connecticut)
~ Hidden Messiahs and Hidden Saints in Late Antiquity
Alexei M. Sivertsev (De Paul University)