Last week, Mark Goodacre posted a link to papers being presented at the British New Testament Conference.

I browsed around the site, and one paper in particular (being presented in the Social World of the NT Seminar) caught my eye:

Peter Head (Tyndale House, Cambridge) Letter Carriers in Personal Letters among the Papyri and Pauline epistolary communication strategy.

The paper is available on the web site (second paper in the second session), so I downloaded it and just finished reading it over my lunch hour. It almost makes me want to hop a plane, fake an accent, and see if I can bluff my way into the session.

Seriously, it'll be interesting to see how Head's research progresses. As Timothy and Titus both were likely carriers of Paul's letters, I'm interested in seeing what sorts of conclusions can be made about the role of trusted letter carriers.