What a wonderful and very full academic year! 

Matthew Goff and I serve as editors for the Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha (JSP) and have thoroughly enjoyed the opportunity to showcase outstanding scholarship on literature that has too often been misunderstood and marginalized. Colleagues, consider submitting your work to JSP; you might also consider proposing a thematic issue, a recent addition to the journal we initiated.

This year was busy in terms of dissemination of scholarship. In August, I shared my work on the Wisdom Commentary with members of the Deuterocanonical and Related Literature Continuing Seminar at the Catholic Biblical Association (the CS includes such brilliant and generous colleagues; appreciation to co-chair Prof. Francis Macatangay. In November, I gave a presentation on“ The Legacy of the Hasmoneans: Memorials and the Ruins of Mode’in and Gezer” at the Society of Biblical Literature (Boston)--the reception of 1 Maccabees truly fascinates me--and I heard many excellent presentations at this annual meeting. 

Publications this year concerned 1 Enoch, 1 Maccabees, and angels and demons, some of my favorite topics! My co-editors, Matthew Goff, Joshua Scott and I are happy to report that the volume Enoch Studies in the 2020s: New Vistas is available (De Gruyter, 2026). In addition to a foray into Raguel (for EBR), revisions of Reading Guides for the Oxford Catholic Study Bible and work on the Oxford Jewish Annotated Apocrypha, I submitted three items on 1 Maccabees currently under review. I also reviewed Divine Mysteries in the Enochic Tradition (Ekstasis; De Gruyter), an intriguing and important work by Andrei Orlov--be sure to check out this fascinating book, to which I hope the review (in Revue de Qumrân) does justice. 

The Religious and Theological Studies Program at St. Edward’s University is immensely proud of our majors, minors, and alumni and their accomplishments! RELS and CATH students presented their original research at the Symposium of Undergraduate Research (SOURCE) at St. Edward’s University, the Southwest Commission on Religious Studies, and the Baylor Symposium on Faith and Culture. RELS alumni also presented at Midwest Regional Meeting for Biblical Studies. Our graduates continue to shine in advanced studies as well, with several alumni in fully funded graduate programs in religious studies and theology (with one graduating from the University of Chicago Divinity School this June!). And as if that were not enough, three alumni of Religious and Theological Studies and Catholic Studies were recognized this October as Alumni Award recipients during Homecoming. Congratulations, Lauren Hill, Carlos Barboza, and Jonathan Canales. You are all so deserving of these awards!

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. Speaking of great colleagues, the Religious & Theological Studies program joins our colleagues in Philosophy. Together we will be (starting in the Fall semester of 2027) the Department of Philosophy and Religious and Theological Studies.