This Weekend: Religion and Violence

This weekend at the MacMillan Center:

Yale Conference on Religion and Violence, MacMillan Center Auditorium
Saturday, February 16th (8:30 am - 6 pm)
Convened by the MacMillan Center Initiative on Religion, Politics, & Society

The conference on Religion and Violence will take an interdisciplinary approach towards analyzing the relationship between religion and political violence by bringing together historians and social scientists. The fundamental question we hope to begin exploring is if there is something unique or different about religion that leads particular patterns of conflict across time and space.

The day-long event will consist of two panels and a keynote speaker. The first panel, relating to premodern societies, consists of Hugh Kennedy, Professor of Arabic, School of Oriental and African Studies, and Mack Holt, Professor of History, George Mason University. The second panel, relating to the modern period, consists of Paul Brass, Emeritus Professor of Political Science and International Studies, University of Washington, Seattle; Jennifer Todd, Associate Professor of Politics and Director of British and Irish Studies, University College, Dublin; and Malika Zeghal, Associate Professor of the Anthropology and Sociology of Religion, University of Chicago Divinity School. Our keynote speaker will be the distinguished historian Robert I. Moore, Emeritus Professor of History at Newcastle University.

Looking for Something to Do This Summer?

The editors of Biblical Archaeology Review may be able to help...

GREAT SUMMER OPPORTUNITY!
New Dig Site Lets Volunteers "Spend Your Summer in the Past"

A unique new Web site, http://findadig.com, provides visitors with everything they need to know about volunteering at more than two dozen archaeological excavations in the Middle East and Europe. The new Web site has been created by the editors of Biblical Archaeology Review (BAR), the most popular magazine in its field.

Findadig.com contains:
* In-depth descriptions of more than 30 sites currently undergoing excavation
* The historical and Biblical significance of each site
* Descriptions of how volunteers will help at the site of their choice
* Profiles of the dig directors
* Essays by winners of scholarships provided by the Biblical Archaeology Society, which enabled them to join a dig this past summer. Application forms for 2008 scholarships are available on the site.

Participating in a dig requires no previous experience; all that is needed is an enthusiasm for the adventure of digging up the past.

Visitors to findadig.com can also order a free e-book, I Volunteered for This?!, an informative, amusing and sometimes touching collection of articles by dig volunteers culled from BAR. Isn't working on a dig site a dirty and sweaty job? It sure is! But people wouldn't trade it for anything. Almost everyone who has been part of an archaeological excavation describes it as the experience of a lifetime.

Visit http://findadig.com to see why.

RBL Highlights: 2/14/08

A few highlights from this week's Review of Biblical Literature:

Brian J. Abasciano
Paul's Use of the Old Testament in Romans 9.1-9: An Intertextual and Theological Exegesis
Reviewed by Thomas Gillespie

Luke Timothy Johnson
Hebrews: A Commentary
Reviewed by Wolfgang Kraus

Melody Knowles, Esther Menn, John Pawlikowski, and Timothy Sandoval, eds.
Contesting Texts: Jews and Christians in Conversation about the Bible
Reviewed by Ithamar Gruenwald

Amy-Jill Levine, ed., with Maria Mayo Robbins
A Feminist Companion to the New Testament Apocrypha
Reviewed by James Elliott

Edmondo F. Lupieri; Maria Poggi Johnson and Adam Kamesar, trans.
A Commentary on the Apocalypse of John
Reviewed by Tobias Nicklas

George W. E. Nickelsburg
Resurrection, Immortality, and Eternal Life in Intertestamental Judaism and Early Christianity
Reviewed by Tony Costa

Stanley E. Porter, ed.
The Messiah in the Old and New Testaments
Reviewed by Michael F. Bird
Reviewed by James Hamilton Charlesworth