4th Annual University of Birmingham Postgraduate Researcher Day Conference Call for Papers

The University of Birmingham just released a call for papers for the 4th Annual University of Birmingham Postgraduate Researcher Day Conference here. The conference will take place on 2 July 2014 at the University of Birmingham. The conference theme "Becoming a Sacred Text" sounds very interesting to me, and I'm sure there will be an exciting lineup of papers. James Crossley and Timothy Michael Law will be delivering keynote presentations, and postgraduate students from across the UK (and further afield) are invited to propose papers by 15 April. The University of Birmingham over the past few years has established itself as a hub of intervarsity postgraduate networking, and it would be a great opportunity for postgraduate researchers to share their research, receive peer feedback, and meet future colleagues.

 

Lugano Research Seminar on the History of the Caves of Qumran

I just returned from Lugano, Switzerland from a Research Seminar on the History of the Caves of Qumran on 20-21 February. The conference was well-attended, and was heavily dominated by discussions of the archaeology and interrelationships between the caves and the settlement of Qumran, which was very helpful for those more text-focused like me. Two text highlights are worthy of note.

1) Yonatan Adler announced the discovery of 9 (possibly 10) previously unknown tefillin slips found inside of unopened tefillin cases from Qumran. The slips have not yet been opened and read, but they promise to be very interesting.

2) Torleif Elgvin flattened out three leather fragments from the Schøyen collection he had considered to be uninscribed to find two fragmentary lines matching the known text of 4Q252 (Commentary on Genesis A). He suggested that this may be a second copy of this commentary.

We eagerly anticipate the full publication of these exciting discoveries!