Tooting My Own Horn

I’m very happy to report that I received an award tonight for the best dissertation in Oxford’s Master of Studies in Jewish Studies. My dissertation (thesis, really) was entitled “Anti-Anthropomorphism and the Vorlage of LXX Exodus.”

As part of the award I received a copy of A Historical Atlas of the Jewish People with the following affixed inside:

Please excuse my narcissism as I pat myself on the back.

PS – Can you guess where my middle name comes from without googling it? Only one person has ever guessed correctly.

ANSWER: My middle name was taken from the character Orrin Sackett, who appears in a number of Louis L’Amour books from his series on the Sackett family.

Congratulations to Sir Fergus Millar

My recent professor for Judaism and the Roman Diaspora, Fergus Millar, has been awarded a knighthood for services to scholarship as part of the Queen’s birthday honours list. Sir Professor Millar retired in 2002 but has continued to teach courses for the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies, and, according to the BBC article, “is credited as being among the most influential ancient historians of the 20th Century.” He also has the best eyebrows in Oxford.

SBL Program Up

As you’ve probably heard, the SBL annual meeting Online Program Book is now up. I am presenting two papers this year, and they’ll both be on Monday. Both my abstracts are here. Don’t know how I feel about that yet, but here’s the way it looks:

Hebrew Scriptures and Cognate Literature
11/22/2010
9:00 AM to 11:30 AM
Room: Room TBD – Hotel TBD

Theme: A Mesopotamian Framework for Understanding Ancient Faith: Individual Religious Experience in Communal Context

Esther Hamori, Union Theological Seminary, Presiding
Daniel O. McClellan, University of Oxford
El Elyon, Begetter of Heaven and Earth (30 min)
Richard S. Hess, Denver Seminary
Bezalel in Context (30 min)
Yitzhaq Feder, Bar Ilan University
Blood Expiation in Hittite and Biblical Ritual (30 min)
Beate Pongratz-Leisten, New York University
A Mesopotamian Framework for Understanding Ancient Faith: Bonding with the Personal God (30 min)
Daniel E. Fleming, New York University
A Mesopotamian Framework for Understanding Ancient Faith: Religious Attitudes in Literary Perspective (30 min)

Unity and Diversity in Early Jewish Monotheisms
11/22/2010
1:00 PM to 3:30 PM
Room: Room TBD – Hotel TBD

Theme: Key Terms in the Debate about Monotheism

Joel Burnett, Baylor University
What is an elohim? Reflections on Chronicles’ Use of the Term (30 min)
Larry Hurtado, University of Edinburgh
What comprises ‘Jewish Monotheism’ in the late Hellenistic and early Roman Period? (30 min)
Daniel McClellan, University of Oxford
What is Deity in LXX Deuteronomy? (30 min)
Michael Hundley, University of Cambridge
What is divine presence? (30 min)
Robert Barrett, Georg-August Universitaet-Goettingen
What Does it Mean to Follow Other Gods? (30 min)