Waiting for the Summer

Winter semester classes ended last Tuesday. "Summer," for the purposes of this post, begins in another couple weeks--after I have made my way through a small mountain of marking, and submit final grades.

Then I transition from marking essays to writing them: I am happy to report that both my SBL proposals were accepted this year, which means that I will be presenting two papers in San Antonio in November, one in the Book of Acts section, the other in the Hebrew Bible and Political Theory section. It also means that I have two papers to write during the summer. Fortunately for me, neither is brand new:

• "Maccabean Characterization and Reverse Polemic in Acts" will be a major revision of a paper I gave at the Canadian Society of Biblical Studies annual meeting last spring in Ottawa. More details about the CSBS version are here.
•  "The 'Prophet like Moses' and Josephus's Aristocratic Ideal" will be a revision--minor, I hope--of a paper I am scheduled to give at this year's CSBS at the end of May in Calgary. Provided that the pieces of my argument come together in time, I hope to show that, at least in the Antiquities, Deuteronomy 18 informs Josephus's political philosophy. 

Summer also means preparing for next year's classes, including two brand new courses (a first year "Introduction to the New Testament" and a 300-level elective on 1 Corinthians), second-year Hebrew, and an upper level elective on the book of Acts. S'all good, but full.

Somewhere in there will be vacation too.