I LEAVE FIRST THING TOMORROW MORNING for the annual meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature in Atlanta. I am slated for two presentations there. First, on Friday evening, I'm on a panel discussion for the Philadelphia Seminar on Christian Origins. I have some brief preliminary comments on myself and on "The Rechabites in Patristic and Parabiblical Literature," which premium subscribers to PaleoJudaica.com (meaning anyone who clicks on the link) can read now. And here's the handout that goes with the presentation.

Then on Monday morning I present a paper in the Pseudepigrapha Section on "Is the Story of Zosimus Really a Jewish Composition?" which, again, you can read here in advance along with it's handout.

There is a great deal going on at the AAR/SBL meetings, including many papers on ancient Judaism. I can't hope to attend anything like all of them (many are scheduled in conflict with one another), but I'll do the best I can and, if I can find a convenient cyber caf� and enough energy, I'll do my best to comment on a few of them here during the conference. The Cambridge SBL meeting was in a single building, but this conference is in two different hotels some distance from each other in downtown Atlanta so, assuming I do attend some papers, I may not have much time for blogging.

A while ago Mark Goodacre pointed out the SBL Program Pages site, which links to the home pages for a number of the SBL program units. Many of these already have conference papers posted. For ancient Judaism note especially the Josephus Seminar, which has links to the following papers for this year:

John M G Barclay (University of Durham) "Josephus and his Audiences: Exploring Reading Options in a Commentary" (Response: James S Mclaren [Australian Catholic University])

Jonathan J Price (Tel Aviv University), "Josephus' reading of Thucidydes: A test-case in the BJ," (Response: Honora H Chapman [California State University, Fresno])

Miriam Ben-zeev (Ben Gurion University), "Josephus' Ambiguities: His Comments on Cited Documents,"

Claude Eilers (McMaster University), "Josephus' Caesarian Acta: History of a Dossier"

Tessa Rajak (University Of Reading), "Who needs charters? Josephus in the light of Greek historiographical practice"

(Response: Erich S. Gruen [University of California Berkeley])

There's also the Early Jewish and Christian Mysticism Group (to whose main page, mysteriously, there is no link). Papers for this year include:

Jonathan Knight - The mystical understanding in the Ascension of Isaiah

Andrei Orlov - Ex 33 on God's Face:A Lesson from the Enochic Tradition

Christopher R. A. Morray-Jones - The Exegete Goes to Heaven: How Visionaries Read Visions (This is dated 2000 and the book has been published - included on the Program Pages page by mistake?)

Charles A. Gieschen - Baptismal Praxis in the Book of Revelation

These and other groups have papers from past years on their websites as well. Mark Goodacre has also been listing papers of New Testament interest this week (just keep scrolling down). If you can't get to the conference this year, there's plenty online which will give you a good virtual experience, even if it still lacks the networking in the halls between sessions and drinking at the receptions.

As I said, I'll try to do at least a little blogging while I'm there. I'm scheduled to be back in St. Andrews on Wednesday, the 26th. Have a good week.