Dear IBR Colleagues,
I am looking forward to seeing you at our annual meetings in Chicago! We have an excellent program planned for you as you will see in the program below. This year we have a much larger number of participants and our time is beginning with the Friday afternoon Research Groups between 4:00 – 6:00 p.m. (see their afternoon program below). This is followed by our 7:00 p.m. plenary session with Ben Witherington andStanley Porter. We will again have our Saturday morning OT and NT sessions and Sunday morning worship service. This year Dr. Richard Mouw,president of Fuller Seminary, will bring the worship homily on Sunday morning. There are several excellent opportunities for you to be involved and we look forward to your participation. Our full program is attached below.
As you will see below, an exciting new program was launched in cooperation with the IRLBR that aims at developing younger biblical scholars. This was held at Tyndale House in Cambridge, England this summer and led by Lynn Cohick from Wheaton College and Dan Fredericks from Belhaven University. The IRLBR was begun by IBR’s late founder E. Earle Ellis and continues under the leadership of the IRLBR Board. Lynn’s Young Scholars Summit report is as follows:
This June (2012) the International Reference Library of Biblical Research initiated and sponsored a Young Scholars Seminar, led by IRLBR Board member Dan Fredericks, Belhaven University. The seminar focused on offering a small group of scholars who recently completed their PhD an opportunity to explore a central biblical issue. This year, three scholars (Paul Hoskins, Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, Daniel Kirk, Fuller Seminary, and Joel Willitts, North Park University) traveled to Tyndale House, Cambridge, and studied the question: “What is the Gospel: Cross or Kingdom?” The participants were enriched by the lively discussions, and are planning to produce a short work to help the laity grow in their discipleship. The IBR Board was invited to be involved in formulating the topic, and in bringing together the young scholars. A member from the IBR board, Lynn Cohick, Wheaton College, served as the Senior Scholar for the seminar.
This year Zondervan Publishers will be sponsoring our refreshments on Friday evening and those with our IBR name badges will get a free book following Zondervan’s brief presentation.
Because of the conflict in scheduling our business sessions on Saturday mornings as a result of SBL starting earlier on Saturdays, we have not been able to have a sufficient number of participants in our business session. We have checked with our legal counsel on how to conduct our business and have decided that we will no longer have the traditional business sessions, but rather send out our ballots to you by email. Shortly you will receive a ballot from our Secretary, Lynn Cohick. You will be asked to vote on the new officers for the IBR Board.
The Nominating Committee this year, led partially by Tremper Longman but also by Katie Heffelfinger and Cindy Westfall received your recommendations for our new Board positions. The terms of service for several of us, including me, will conclude and we are happy to send to you for your approval the following list of candidates for service on the IBR Board of Directors.
For President: Dr. Tremper Longman, Westmont College. I note here that Tremper withdrew from the nominating process after several nominations of him for the office of president came in. No other name received more recommendations and he has allowed his name to be presented to you for your consideration.
The other positions on our Board are as follows: Dr. Mark Boda, McMaster Divinity College, has agreed to serve as our next program chair and so his position on our Board is therefore open. The Nominating Committee has recommended that Dr. Nijay Gupta, Eastern University, be approved to serve on our Board. Finally, Dr. Ruth Anne Reese, Asbury Seminary, has agreed to serve another term on our Board of Directors and so we ask for your approval of her for a second and final term on the IBR Board.
In Summary:
For President: Dr. Tremper Longman
For member at large: Dr. Nijay Gupta
For a second term as member at large: Dr. Ruth Anne Reese
Shortly, you will be given a ballot to approve their nominations (or not) and we hope that you will return your ballots within ten days of receiving them. They received your recommendations and are pleased to report the following nominations to you for your approval.
The two IBR volumes on the OT (Rick Hess and Bill Arnold, eds.) and NT (Joel B. Green and Lee M. McDonald, eds.) that have been in the process or production for the last two years will be published by Baker Academic in the coming year.
In the newsletter you will see our complete program for this year in Chicago and we encourage you to invite colleagues to our meetings and also your masters and doctoral level students to our programs. We have been pleased to welcome a number of guests among us in recent years and continue to welcome guests to our meetings. We invite you to encourage your colleagues and doctoral students to become members of the IBR as either Fellows or Associate Members.
Finally, please continue to check out this site for updated BBR listings as well as more news from the many forthcoming IBR activities.
Blessings to you and we look forward to seeing you in Chicago November 16-18 and during the SBL meetings!
Lee Martin McDonald, President