The joint annual meetings of the American Academy of Religion (AAR) and the Society of Biblical Literature (SBL) drew nearly 11,000 scholars to Denver, Colorado from 17-20 November 2018.
The Annual Meetings bring together more than 1,200 academic sessions and workshops and feature one of the world’s largest exhibits of books and digital resources for Biblical and Theological studies. EGST was represented at these sessions by three of its faculty members: Dr. Desta Heliso, Dr. Theodros Assefa, and Dr. Afework Hailu, and four members from the Faculty Development project: Dr. Leulseged Philemon, Fanos Workalemahu, Meron Tekleberhan, and Sofanit Tamene Abebe.
Dr. Theodros Assefa presented a paper at the Scripture and Theology: Perspectives from the Majority World, under the series of sessions run by the Institute of Biblical Research. Dr. Desta Heliso, Fanos Workalemahu, Meron Tekleberhan, and Sofanit Tamene Abebe presented papers at a session of the Ethiopic Bible and Literature Program unit entitled Ethiopian Interpretation of Biblical Texts while Dr. Afework Hailu presented in the Ethiopian Texts, Saints, Ascetics and Homilies of the same program unit. All papers received positive feedback. In addition to presenting papers and attending relevant sessions, the EGST team was also able to network and discuss possibilities for future institutional collaboration with diverse individuals and representatives of other institutions.
According to Dr. Desta Heliso, “The implication of these global meetings increases the visibility of EGST, upsurges its credibility and helps faculty members to stance shoulder to shoulder with other international scholars. As global family members, we need to strive to network and learn from others. It is indeed a wrong approach to think that we are self-suffient by ourselves. These meetings display to the world EGST’s contribution to knowledge worldwide and mark its ‘Rising Stars’ who are fiercely intelligent in the global platform. These kinds of meetings are also extremely important for personal development, and people should be developed in order to be useful to EGST and the work of God in His world.”
Special thanks to EGST team and Dr. Desta Heliso for this report!
