Each autumn just before Thanksgiving, the academic publishing year caps off with what is commonly known as "the Fall Conferences." More specifically, this refers to the week-long assembly of events surrounding the Evangelical Theological Society (ETS) Annual Meeting and the joint American Academy of Religion (AAR) and Society of Biblical Literature (SBL) Annual Meetings. In 2023, these conferences were all held in San Antonio, Texas.
It's a mouthful of acronyms—to be sure—but more importantly, it's a significant opportunity to engage in important religious publishing conversations and learn from the wisdom of leading scholars. For students, scholars, authors, and pastors, these events serve as catalysts for discussing critical issues that affect the academy, the church, and our wider culture.
The IVP Academic team works hard preparing for their engagement with these conferences in order to lift up the voices of our authors and the scholarship their work represents. We've asked each editor to highlight a handful of books they helped developed in 2023. Which authors and works brought new insights into wider discussion during the year?
Rachel Hastings is excited about Mike Bird's journey through key themes in Luke-Acts, a biblical anthropology on what it means to be human, a New Testament translation that shocks our senses, a study of thematic threads through the Minor Prophets, and an exploration of how the New Testament canon was formed.
Colton Bernasol's highlighted works explore ways to understand Asian American identity, key writings from the house church movement in China translated into English for the first time, personalist ethics in our pluralistic society, and how Old and New Testament passages reveal the relationship between justice and virtue ethics.
Rebecca Carhart reflects on a groundbreaking Pauline dictionary with 209 articles thoroughly updated since its first publication thirty years ago, a unique work on how singleness has been understood throughout Christian history, and an ESBT volume on how the theology of creation permeates all throughout Scripture.
Jon Boyd's list includes works on what we know about women in ancient history, wisdom from Jonathan Edwards for Christians hundreds of years later, a truly cross-disciplinary work on Artemis of Ephesians, a practical call for why we need people with disabilities in church leadership, and a "mind-blowing" work that combines evolutionary science and biblical studies.
Zach Gordon shares books that consider the way story shapes our faith, what the Reformers have to say about wisdom literature, classical theism according to Kierkegaard, and a personal and biblical treatment of how evil shows up in our lives.