I will be speaking at a conference next week that will be held in two different locations (USU and BYU) on two different days (Feb 19 and 22).  The theme of the conference is “Enoch and the Temple.” The conference is co-sponsored by The Academy for Temple Studies and the USU Religious Studies program.  The keynote speaker will be renowned biblical scholar George Nickelsburg, who has done indispensable work on the Enochic tradition.  My presentation is entitled “Enoch and the City of Zion: Can an Entire Community Ascend to Heaven?”  More information on the program follows (via http://www.templestudies.org/home/2013-enoch-and-the-temple-conference/):

The Academy for Temple Studies and the USU Religious Studies Program are very pleased to announce a distinguished co-sponsored program on “Enoch and the Temple,” with a keynote address by George W. E. Nickelsburg, emeritus professor of religion at the University of Iowa, member of the Enoch Seminar, and highly recognized expert on 1 Enoch. Among his many publications on the Enoch traditions is his landmark two-volume Hermeneia commentary on 1 Enoch. The second volume was published in 2012 by Fortress Press.

Please plan to attend. The public is invited. There will be no charge for this event, although voluntary contributions are welcomed.

This program will be presented at Utah State University in Logan, Utah, at 4:30-7:00 pm, on Tuesday, February 19, 2013, in the Old Main Building, Room 121. The keynote presentation will be introduced by Jared Ludlow and will be followed by papers by David Larsen and Jeffrey Bradshaw. The program will conclude with a panel discussion on temple themes and religious messages in the Enoch literature, and there will be time for questions and discussion.

This program will be repeated and the discussion will continue at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah, from 1:00-4:00 pm on Friday, February 22, 2013, in 303 JRCB, the Law School Moot Court Room, with a few additional participants on the panel. Watch for further details.

If you plan to attend either or both of these events, a quick RSVP will be appreciated, so we can plan appropriately. Please send a RSVP for the USU event on Feb. 19th to Diane Buist (diane.buist@usu.edu), and for the BYU event on Feb. 22nd to Annette Samuelsen (byu_studies@byu.edu).

Also, if you were registered for our symposium on October 29, 2012, about “Mormonism and the Temple: Examining an Ancient Religious Tradition,” we plan to deliver to you at this Enoch symposium your copy of the October conference proceedings volume. We hope that at least one of these times and places will be convenient for you.

Sincerely,
The Organizing Committee (Gary Anderson, Phil Barlow, Jack Welch)

(And yes, I am still alive. I haven’t posted for months due to my heavy schedule of teaching, dissertation writing, and conference presentations.  I hope to be done with my dissertation in the very near future and plan to return to posting here more frequently.)


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