The New Testament Mysticism Project

From the Novum Testamentum blog I gather some information about (the SBL) The New Testament Mysticism Project. The project has its own web page at http://www.newtestamentmysticism.com/.

This project should probably be of interest to some Philo scholars too. Its webpage has links with information about seminar members, steering committee, style guide, working, definition, Glossary, and the 2006 session: Matthew.

The link to definition leads you to an informative paper written by April D. DeConick on "What is Early Jewish and Christian Mysticism?"

The selfpresentation of the group says that the New Testament Mysticism Project Seminar (NTMPS)"understands early Jewish and Christian mysticism as a tradition located within formative Judaism and Christianity, a tradition centering on the belief that a person directly, immediately and before death can experience God or his manifestation. These mystical encounters occur as waking visions, dreams, trances and auditions."
One of aims of the project is "to collectively write a commentary covering mysticism in the New Testament. The Seminar will progress systematically through each New Testament text, writing overviews of each text as well as commentaries on relevant pericopes. Each entry will include the original language passage, a new translation, a line-by-line commentary, an interpretative history of the pericope through the Ante-Nicene period, literature parallels, and select bibliography."