If you want the full paper, you'll have to come to the conference. But if you want a taste, I'll be looking at the Old Testament and ancient Jewish background of each the images used to describe the 144,00 in Revelation 14:
Then I looked, and behold, on Mount Zion stood the Lamb, and with him a hundred and forty-four thousand who had his name and his Father’s name written on their foreheads. And I heard a voice from heaven like the sound of loud thunder; the voice I heard was like the sound of kitharists playing on their kitharas, and they sing a new song before the throne and before the four living creatures and before the elders. No one could learn that song except the one-hundred and forty-four thousand who had been ransomed from the earth. It is these who have not defiled themselves with women, for they are virgins; it is these who follow the Lamb wherever he goes; these have been redeemed from mankind as first fruits for God and the Lamb, and in their mouth no lie was found, for they are blameless. (Revelation 14:1-4)
In the paper, I argue that each of the key images used to describe the 144,000 are priestly images:
1. They wear the "name" of God on their foreheads (cf. Exodus 28; Sirach 45);
2. They have the exclusive right to sing the "new song" of the heavenly liturgy with "kitharas" (2 Chronicles 9; 1 Maccabees 4; Antiquities 20)
3. They abstain from sexual relations with women (Exodus 19; Leviticus 15; 1 Samuel 21);
4. They are sacrificial "first-fruits" who have been "ransomed" (Numbers 3)
5. No lie was found in their mouths (Malachi 2, the ideal priest).
It should go without saying that such a paper raises all kinds of questions about the biblical origins of priestly celibacy. But more on that anon; I've got to go catch a plane.