I will be having the extraordinary opportunity to attend two fantastic conferences in the next month or so.  I will be taking meticulous notes that I plan to share with you all soon afterwards.

The first conference, held October 31 in London, England, is the 3rd Temple Studies Symposium, organized by Margaret Barker and the Temple Studies Group.

The second, held November 21-24 in New Orleans, LA, is the Society of Biblical Literature’s annual meeting.

The Temple Studies Group Symposium III — “The Holy Anointing Oil”

(From the Temple Studies Group website)

The next Temple Studies Group Symposium will be on Saturday 31 October 2009, 10am–4pm in the Temple Church, London.

Anointing with myrrh oil was the most holy mystery of the Jerusalem temple. It passed into Christianity and gave the faith its name. This symposium will explore the temple rite and its meaning, and then look at some of the ways in which Christians preserved the ancient tradition.

Confirmed speakers are:

Dr Richard Price [The Early Church];

Bishop Basil of Amphipolis [The Orthodox tradition];

Dr Sebastian Brock [The Syriac and Armenian tradition];

Dr Laurence Hemming [The Roman Catholic tradition];

Professor John Hall [The Anointing of the Gods in Egypt, Israel and Rome];

Dr Margaret Barker [The Temple Tradition].

I was blessed to be able to attend the last Temple Studies Group symposium, in May, on Temple Music.  It was absolutely incredible and inspiring to witness a group of scholars gathered to present material on and discuss themes related to the temple.  I was able to meet with many people I admire greatly, including Margaret Barker, Crispin Fletcher-Louis, Robin Griffith-Jones, and others.  I was also very pleased to meet, for the first time, Frederick Huchel and his wife.  It was a great experience and I am really looking forward to this next symposium.

This time, while  Bro. Huchel unfortunately will not be able to make it, Professor John Hall of BYU will be there, and also Gary Anderson, who is also LDS.  I look forward to meeting them.  Prof Hall, as you can see above, will be presenting a paper there.

If you’re interested, you can read my notes from the last Temple Studies Group symposium here.

SBL 2009 Annual Meeting in New Orleans

I will be attending, for the third time, the SBL (Society of Biblical Literature) Annual Meeting, this time being held in good old New Orleans, Louisiana. Actually, this will be the first time I will have ever been to that city (thank goodness it wasn’t totally washed away by Katrina or I would never have been able to say I ever went there).

This year’s meeting will be great.  Besides hearing presentations from some of the greatest biblical scholars in the world, there is the opportunity to meet and get to know many scholars and students in my field of study.  People come from all over the world to attend these meetings.

I will actually be presenting my first SBL Annual Meeting paper at this meeting.  I will be presenting at the Early Jewish and Christian Mysticism session on Monday, the 23rd. The session starts at 4:00pm and I will be the last speaker (session ends at 6:30pm).  The paper I will be presenting is entitled “And He Departed from the Throne: The Enthronement of Moses in Place of the Noble Man in Exogoge of Ezekiel the Tragedian.”  (I will be sure to share more about that paper with you in the future.)

Again, I will be taking careful notes at this meeting and will be sure to share it with you soon afterwards.

To see my notes from last year’s SBL conference, see here, here and here.