Following a distinguished six years of service to the IOSCS, at the end of this year Prof. Rob Hiebert is stepping down as President. His contribution to LXX studies has been significant, not least through his involvement in the New English Translation of the Septuagint, the SBL Commentary on the Septuagint Series, and his leadership of the John Wevers Institute at Trinity Western University. He is also preparing the forthcoming volume on 4 Maccabees for the Göttingen Septuaginta series. We are grateful for his leadership over his two presidential terms.

Prof. Hiebert’s successor in the role, Prof. Alison Salvesen, studied with James Barr and Sebastian Brock at Oxford and wrote her DPhil on Symmachus in the Pentateuch (1988). She was the main editor of the Oxford Handbook of the Septuagint (2021) and is one of the founding members of the Hexapla Project. Among her many interests, she regularly writes on the later Jewish Greek versions and their reception history. She looks forward to serving the IOSCS community in this capacity.

— Alison Salvesen and Jean Maurais

We report the sad news that Robert A. Kraft, a founding member and longtime participant in the IOSCS, died on September 15, 2023 at the age of 89. Bob was a scholar with interests that encompassed the entirety of ancient Jewish and Christian literature. He was a member of the first Executive Committee of the IOSCS (see BIOSCS 2) and served the organization in a range of capacities since its inception. He presented the paper “Translation Technique and Jewish Greek Idiom: Some Examples and Prospects” at the 1968 organizational meeting of the IOSCS. In addition to his publications on the Septuagint, he edited the first two volumes in the SCS series, Septuagintal Lexicography (SCS 1; Missoula, MT: Scholars Press, 1972), which laid the groundwork for a lexicon of the Septuagint and the CATSS project, and 1972 Proceedings of the International Organization for Septuagint and Cognate Studies and the Society of Biblical Literature Pseudepigrapha Seminar (SCS 2: Missoula, MT: Scholars Press, 1972). He was a pioneer in and evangelist for the use of computer technology in textual study, particularly with respect to the Septuagint. He co-directed with Emanuel Tov the Computer Assisted Tools for Septuagint Studies (CATSS) project, which produced the first parallel aligned text of the Septuagint with morphological analysis. Among his publications on the Septuagint, which included a collaboration with Tov on the DJD publication of the Naḥal Ḥever Minor Prophets Scroll, he edited with Tov and contributed to Computer Assisted Tools for Septuagint Studies Volume 1: Ruth (SCS 20; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1986), which introduced the results of the CATSS project to the scholarly public, and he edited the PHI CCAT/CATSS Demonstration CD ROM #1, which contained the CATSS databases and showed the benefits of electronic storage and distribution of textual data. Throughout his career, Bob pushed the boundaries of what might be possible in the scholarly study of ancient texts, and the IOSCS and the scholarly academy more broadly are in his debt. In addition to his scholarly work, he would often grace friends and colleagues with a poem for important occasions, and he could always be counted on to try to fix something that others thought irredeemably broken. He will be greatly missed by all who knew him.

— Benjamin G. Wright, on behalf of the IOSCS Executive Committee

The IOSCS is pleased to announce that the 2023 John W. Wevers prize for an outstanding paper in LXX studies goes to Ryan Comins for his paper "The Linguistic Register of 3 Maccabees and its Sociocultural Implications." Ryan Comins is a PhD student at the University of Cambridge working under the supervision of Dr Marieke Dhont and Prof Katharine Dell. We congratulate Ryan for this achievement.

The program book for the SBL in San Antonio is out! Our amazing SBL program chair and program coordinator, Reinhart Ceulemans, has finalized this year's sessions for the San Antonio Annual Meeting with the help of his team (Alison Salvesen and Felix Albrecht). You can look up the details concerning the four sessions and fifteen papers on the SBL's website (keyword: IOSCS). Please note that our annual business meeting will be held at the end of one of these sessions, on Nov 20th. Make sure to stop by if you are a member or interested in finding out more about what is going on in LXX studies.

It is with great sadness that we announce the passing of Dr. James Aitken, Professor of Hebrew and Early Jewish Studies at the University of Cambridge. Members of the IOSCS also knew him as an active scholar within the discipline of Septuagint Studies, a member of the executive committee, and a regular participant at IOSCS conferences. Among his many important publications are No Stone Unturned: Greek Inscriptions and Septuagint Vocabulary (Eisenbrauns, 2014) and, as editor, The T&T Clark Companion to the Septuagint (2015). He also delivered the 2021–22 Grinfield Lectures at the University of Oxford on the topics, “The Septuagint and Scribal Creativity in Egypt,” “The Septuagint—A Translation Among Translations,” and “The Septuagint, Editing, and Textual Production in Ancient Judaism.” These contributions to scholarship were indicative of his keen interest in the language, exegesis, and place within Second Temple Jewish society of the Greek version of the Jewish Scriptures. But more than an outstanding scholar, Jim was also a good friend to many, someone who gave generously of his time and his wisdom to both colleagues and students alike. He will be sorely missed.

— Rob Hiebert and Alison Salvesen, on behalf of the IOSCS Executive Committee