Revelation Reception Network: Updates

A lot has been happening with the Revelation Reception Network and Seminar of late! 

Season 4 in Planning: A few months ago, we posted the call for papers for Season Four of The Revelation Reception Network Seminar. The call closed July 31, and we received a wonderful set of proposals covering everything from the earliest reception of the book in the second century to apocalyptic themes in twentieth-century cinema. Unfortunately, there's not going to be room in our season for all them, so some difficult choices lie ahead for the leadership team. Thanks to everyone who sent us proposals. 

New Collaboration: Through a Glass Darkly Symposium (Colorado Springs). This year, for the first time ever, the Revelation Reception Network is partnering with the Through a Glass Darkly, which will be hosting it's 11th annual annual symposium. This year it will be in Colorado Springs, scheduled for Feb. 24-25, 2027. The call for papers went out out not long ago, and the topic this year is the long reception of the book of Revelation, so please do send your proposals before Oct 1 to the organizer Colin McAllister. Learn more and send a proposal here. 

Proposed ETL Special Issue. Last week, I delivered the full manuscript of all papers to the editors of the journal ETL. Two years ago, our Oxford Patristics 2-day workshop on the late-antique reception of John's Revelation was a great success, and in the days following, we started working to revise the papers presented there to submit them as a guest-edited issue of ETL. These things are always complicated and frequently take more time than we anticipate, but eventually the peer review process was completed, a second round of author revisions was made, and we have been able to bundle everything up and send them off to Leuven, where the ETL editors will deliberate as to how to move forward with our proposed volume. Nothing's set until it's formally accepted by their editorial board, but our hopes are up! 

Proposed BETL collective volume. Two years ago, we began planning for the papers delivered during our seminar series to be published under the same cover. This past year, we began concrete plans in this direction, and began working on a concrete proposal which we would submit to one among a number of appropriate series--probably at Brill, Peeters, or Mohr Siebeck. In the end, the editors (Ian Boxall, Cristian Cardozo, and myself) decided on the BETL series (Bibliotheca Ephemeridum Theologicarum Lovaniensium) due to its excellent reputation, the fact that we have had a productive relationship with them in the past, and, perhaps most importantly, an invitation to propose from one of the editorial board members. The volume, as proposed, should have about 15 contributions, covering over 1800 years of Revelation's interpretation and influence. We're also pleased that one of the leading lights on the study of Revelation has agreed to write a Foreword to the volume (name TBD).

New Jerusalem Conference (Barcelona). Though not an official collaboration of the RRN, my involvement as co-convener of another conference means there's a bit more news for the Network. As announced already in a previous blog post, there will be a conference in Barcelona in April 2027 on a topic central to John's Revelation. The conference will be called "The Heavenly Jerusalem: The Origin and Reception of the Idea of a Heavenly City in Jewish and Christian Tradition." The conveners, along with myself, will be Marcos Aceituno (Barcelona), Tobias Nicklas (Regensburg), Armand Puig (Rome), and Jens Schröter (Berlin). There are already plans for an ensuing anthology to be published containing the edited and expanded papers, but it's too far in advance to say much more than that the proceedings will be published. Watch this space.

And more... There's still more news, but it's premature to share now. Things ripen in their time.

I think I speak for my co-conveners Cristian Cardozo, Tom Schmidt, and Régis Burnet when I say it's a real privilege to be able to facilitate this kind of academic and intellectual community.

Artwork: The Seven Angels with the Trumpets, from The Apocalypse, Latin Edition, 1511, by Albrecht Dürer. Photograph: yalebiblestudy.org.