Acknowledgements
I want to express my thankfulness to all scholars who participated in this conference, also for your patience with the circumstances when we had to postpone the conference. We had participants from Australia, Israel, Malta, the Netherlands, Switzerland, the UK and the USA, which included specialists in the Scrolls, in Second Temple Judaism and literature, but also in archaeology and curating. On a national level, there were scholars from the University of the Free State, the University of North West and also from our university—the University of Pretoria.
I want to thank Professor George Brooke, not only for being one of the scholars who stimulated the conversations, but also for agreeing that we can capture this conference in an STDJ volume. Thank you, George, also for your guidance and insight.
I want to thank all the colleagues from my department for their assistance and support. They were the ones who worked behind the scenes on the technical side to ensure that our virtual conference ran smooth. Thank you, Professors Dirk Human, Alphonso Groenewald and Sias Meyer. I also want to thank our administrator, Ms. Karen Esbagh, who assisted with sending out all the emails and most of all for following up on the refunds of the air tickets.
Lastly, I could not have done this without the expertise and mentorship of Professor John J. Collins. Thank you, John, for embarking on this journey with me.