The last academic year provided rich opportunities for working with and learning from colleagues.

Matthew Goff and I accepted the invitation to serve as editors for the Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha (JSP) and have thoroughly enjoyed the opportunity to showcase outstanding scholarship on texts that have too often been misunderstood and marginalized. Many thanks to Matthias Henze for all his work as past editor of the journal and for his encouragement. Colleagues, consider submitting your work to JSP!

November provided an opportunity to connect with colleagues at the Annual Meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature and to be part of valuable conversations. This year I completed my term as co-chair of the Pseudepigrapha Section and express appreciation for co-chair Patrick Pouchelle, incoming co-chair Karina Hogan, and the Steering Committee (the Pseudepigrapha section is in good hands!). I was also pleased co-host with Joshua Scott the Enoch Seminar Reception at the Annual Meeting of the SBL. Thanks to the vision and leadership of Gabriele Boccaccini, the Enoch Seminar continues to host important conversations on Judaism and Christianity in antiquity.

This Spring, I was awarded a Champion Award for Mission-Informed Teaching, which was sponsored by St. Edward’s University’s Center for Teaching Excellence; the award recognized my efforts in redesigning a course on “Women and the Bible.” The redesign included a Teach-In in which students shared their research with our University community.

The academic year was also a busy one because my colleagues in Religious and Theological Studies and I received a grant for a self-study from the Wabash Center for Teaching and Learning, Our self-study concerned “Mission-Aligned Learning for 2027 and Beyond: Fostering Student Success through Inclusive and Experiential Learning.” 

In March, I was honored to serve as President of the Southwest Commission on Religious Studies (SWCRS) and I also attended excellent presentations of St. Edward’s University students at the SWCRS meeting. And speaking of St. Edward’s students, the Religious and Theological Studies Program at St. Edward’s University is immensely proud of our majors and minors and their accomplishments! Our students also shared their original research at the Symposium of Undergraduate Research (SOURCE) at St. Edward’s University. Several of our alumni, currently in graduate studies in religion and theology, were profiled in the St. Edward’s Magazine. And, two alumni from Religious Studies and Catholic Studies were selected as award recipients for Alumni Weekend. So proud!

This summer, I attended and served as a Keynote Speaker at Worlds Above and Below: An Interdisciplinary Conference on Supernatural Worlds in Classics, Judaism, and Early Christianity (University of Otago, July 2024). I presented on “Horizons, Peripheries, and Dreamscapes: Twenty-First Century Tours of 1 Enoch 1-36,” Appreciation to Rev. Dr. Katie Marcar, Dr. Joel Gordon, and Dr. Arlene Allen for the invitation and for organizing such a fascinating conference. In August, I will attend the General Annual Meeting of the Catholic Biblical Association in Washington DC and will give a Research Report on 1 Maccabees. Francis Macatangay and I also co-chair the Deuterocaonical and Cognate Literature Continuing Seminar; we are beginning a new multi-year study on reception history.

In terms of writing projects, I’ve been busy with guest-edited issues of the Journal for Ancient Judaism and Biblische Notizen, which included articles from several presenters in the 2022 Enoch Seminar which I co-chaired. Essays and an article on Aramaic Enoch and 1 Maccabees also were published this academic year, and I have continued work on my commentary on 1 Maccabees and on annotations for the New Oxford Annotated Bible.

This last academic year has been a busy one (aren’t they all?), but I am so grateful for all my colleagues and students (past and present) who make scholarship and education such a joy.