Programme

The Society for Old Testament Study in its 109th year is delighted to host its 101st Summer Meeting:

University Park Campus, Nottingham

13th-16th July 2026

Under the presidency of Prof David Firth

Travel and campus information

Registration, accommodation, the dinner restaurant, and the bar (the site of the opening reception) are all at Cripps Hall, University of Nottingham, University Park Campus, Lenton Hall Dr, Nottingham NG7 2QW. The lectures, book stall, and lunch are all in the Sir Clive Granger Building, a 5 minute walk away.

A map of the University Park campus can be found here:
https://www.nottingham.ac.uk/sharedresources/documents/mapuniversitypark.pdf
Cripps Hall is marked L, in box E2. The Sir Clive Granger Building is marked 16, in box E3.

Further information about travel, campus, and accommodation, can be found here.

Programme

You can download a PDF of the programme here.

MONDAY 13th July

2.00pm	Committee Meeting (Library, Cripps Hall)
4.00 pm	Registration (Cripps Hall)
6.00 pm	Reception (in celebration of the forthcoming Festschrift for Prof. Katharine Dell) Cripps Bar/Lounge
7.00 pm	Dinner (Cripps Hall)
8.15 pm	Presidential Paper: David Firth, ‘The Psalter and Theodicy’ (Sir Clive Granger Building)
9.00 pm	Bar open (Cripps Hall)
12.00 am	Bar closes

TUESDAY 14th July

7.45 am	Breakfast
9.00 am	Sarah Turner-Smith, ‘Did Adam hide because he was naked? Fear, obedience, and piety in the first human family’ (PG/ECR paper)
9:30 am	Kengoro Goto, ‘How to Identify Northern Hebrew Features with New Criteria: Examples and Benefits’ (PG/ECR paper)
10.00 am	Break
10.10 am	Moritz Franz Adam, ‘What is an Author? Authorship and Ambiguity between Classical and Jewish Literature’ (Winner of the 2025 Essay Prize)
10.50 am	Coffee
11.20 am	Gary A. Rendsburg, ‘Towards a New Ugaritic Dictionary’
12.00 pm	Walter Moberly, ‘Creation and Fall: Towards Understanding Genesis 1-3’
1.00 pm	Lunch
2.15 pm	Update on REF 2029
3.15 pm	Break
3.30 pm	Rebecca S. Watson, ‘From Ark to Anthropocene: The Role of Biblical Interpretation in Shaping Theological Responses to Climate Change’
4.10 pm	Isabelle Hamley, ‘The book of Judges and the failure of hegemonic masculinity’
4.50 pm	Coffee
5.20 pm	Ekaterina Kozlova, ‘“That Broken Reed of a Staff” (2 Kgs 18:21 // Isa 36:6): On Foreign Aid, Geriatric Care, and Disability in Rab-Sheqah’s Taunt’
6.00 pm	Lodewyk Sutton, ‘Where is the house of David? A spatial perspective on the exclusion of the human king in Psalm 115 and the Egyptian Hallel’
7.00 pm	Dinner
8.15 pm	Prof. M. Daniel Carroll R., ‘Echoes and Entry Points: Probing Religion in Amos from Latin America’
9.00 pm	Bar open
12.00 am	Bar closes

WEDNESDAY 15th July

7.45 am	Breakfast
9.00 am	Aaron Koller, ‘Folk categories in ancient Hebrew and the Hebrew Bible: Animals, Seasons, and Directions’
9.40 am	Hugh Pyper, ‘An Orcadian Song of Songs, or How (Not) to Translate Biblical Poetry’
10.20 am	Coffee
10.50 am	Mark Sneed, ‘Does Qohelet Believe in the Tun-Ergehen-Zusammenhang or Not and Why Does it Matter?’
11.30 am	Break
11.40 am	Business Meeting: SOTS members only
1.00 pm	Lunch
2.00 pm	Free time
3.15 pm	PG/ECR Short Papers: three 20-minute papers (including Q&A) by Molly Drake (Judean Pillar Figurines), Liz Grier (Covenant Allusions in Ps. 51), and Yannis Wing Yan Ng (Historically Alert and Ethically Engaged Interpretation)
4.15 pm	Break
4.30 pm	SOTS Tea Great Hall, Trent Building
6.00 pm	Prof. Christl Maier: ‘Political Threat and Scribal Interpretation: Jeremiah’s Emergence as a Prophet to the Nations’ (please note: the time of this paper has changed from the original schedule)
7.00 pm	Dinner
9.00 pm	Bar open
12.00 am	Bar closes

THURSDAY 16th July

7.45 am	Breakfast
9.00 am	Ivan Petrovski, ‘The Soundscape of the Ark Narrative in 1 Samuel 4’ (PG/ECR paper)
9.30 am	Ihor Kuryliak, ‘“Sheol beneath is stirred up”: The Nature of the Actions of the Dead in Isaiah 14:9-10’ (PG/ECR paper)
10.00 am	Break
10.10 am	Paul J. Hocking, ‘Two by Two: A New Way of Reading the Third Creation Unit’
10.50 am	Coffee
11.20 am	Sarah Nicholson, ‘Survival Sex in Bethlehem: Can Ruth Make Herself a Body without Organs?’
12.00 pm	Dylan R. Johnson, ‘Visual Power Networks: Semiotics of Solar Imagery in the Iron Age Visual and Textual Media in the Ancient Levant’
1.00 pm	Lunch, followed by departure