News

2025 JSM Annual Meeting

Date: Monday August 4

Time: 6:00 PM - 7 PM

Location: Music City Center

Room Name: CC-202B

CC = Music City Center (201 Rep. John Lewis Way South, Nashville, TN 37203)

Agenda:

1) ICS introduction (10 mins)

2) Introduction of ICS mentor and mentee program (10 mins)

3) ICS Officer Nomination and Election (5 mins)

4) New Chair – the new theme (5 mins)

5) Small groups (<4~5 people)– connect, engage, and pray (35 mins)

6) Dinner gathering (after 7 pm)

2025 JSM ICS booth/Table

Table #15
Exhibit Floor Plan: https://ww2.amstat.org/meetings/jsm/2025/pdfs/JSM2025-ExhibitorFloorplan.pdf?v=1.6

Hours:
- Monday, August 4, 9:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m.
- Tuesday, August 5, 9:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m.
- Wednesday, August 6, 9:00 a.m. – 2:30 p.m.

Volunteer sign up to host our table:

https://www.signupgenius.com/go/9040D4DAFAA2DA7F85-57739759-icstable

Dr. Jason Wilson - JSM Presentation

Speed 6: Data Science and Statistics: Theory and Applications, Part 1 on 8/5/2025, beginning at 10:30:00 AM.

Room: CC-104A

Title

Are the Gospels and Acts historical? A comparison of the female names with the historic reference distribution.

Abstract

In June, 2024 we published evidence that the 82 male Palestinian Jewish names in the four Gospels and Acts in the Bible fit the distribution of the 2,185 historical reference names pretty well. The method used was the chi-squared goodness-of-fit test (Van de Weghe, Luuk and Jason Wilson. 2024. Why Name Popularity is a Good Test of Historicity. Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus. June 26, 2024. DOI: 10.1163/17455197-bja10035). This is contra Gregor & Blais (2023; Is Name Popularity a Good Test of Historicity? A Statistical Evaluation of Richard Bauckham’s Onomastic Argument; JSHJ; Brill; 21:171-202. DOI: 10.1163/17455197-BJA10023), whose methodological flaws we highlighted. In this follow-up study, we apply the same methodology to the 21 female names against the 341 historical reference names. While the conclusions are not as strong, due to the smaller sample size, the fit is still better than any historical work examined. We verified the goodness-of-fit test results with a simulation. We chose the speed poster format precisely to invite feedback in order to improve future work – please stop by!

Are you interested in serving ICS as officers in the future?

2025 ICS leadership officers election

We are looking for our ICS members who are interested in serving as officers on the ICS leadership team. We have two open positions: Chair-elect and Secretary for the next term. Email: hsuwe@uc.edu if you are interested.