Author Archives: WBS

Interview: Ruth Anne Reese

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R.A.ReeseDr. Ruth Anne Reese is Professor of New Testament at Asbury Theological Seminary. She is also the Chair of the New Testament Department. Reese earned a B.A. from Biola University and a Ph.D. from Sheffield University.

How did you decide to become a biblical scholar? Share your autobiographical journey.

I don’t remember a time when I decided to become a biblical scholar. Since I was a child, I loved the Bible. I read and memorized parts of it when I was young. Eventually, I went to an undergraduate institution where I double majored in English Literature and Bible.  My experience of being a double major raised a lot of questions for me about how we read and study the Bible as literature.  One of my profs told me about an MA in the Bible as Literature that was being offered at the University of Sheffield.  I had read a number of works by David Clines, and so I applied for the one year program. Eventually, I received a letter indicating that there were not enough students to offer the course but inviting me to come and do an M.Phil and offering me the opportunity to study with David Clines.  So, I set out for the University of Sheffield. While I was there, I met a number of female Ph.D. students along with several female lecturers.  The Ph.D. students were very encouraging and indicated that I had the capacity to do the Ph.D. My professors agreed and recommended me for the Ph.D. program.  There were, of course, other steps and hurdles along the way.  But I really didn’t set out to become a Bible scholar. At each step, I found that I had more questions that I wanted to answer, and I set about doing research in order to answer my own questions.  The very process of doing research to answer my own questions became the catalyst for becoming a biblical scholar.  More→

Dr. Amy-Jill Levine On Jewish Jesus

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Dr. Amy-Jill Levine is University Professor of New Testament and Jewish Studies, E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter Professor of New Testament Studies, and  Professor of Jewish Studies at Vanderbilt Divinity School and College of Arts and Sciences. In this extended interview she recounts how she became interested in studying Jesus and the New Testament, as well as the value of Christians and Jews appreciating the Jewish roots of Christianity.

Interview: Kristine Garroway

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kristine-henriksen-garroway-phdDr. Kristine Garroway is Visiting Assistant Professor of Hebrew Bible at Hebrew Union College-Los Angeles. She earned her B.A. from Wheaton College, M.A. from Wheaton College, M.Phil. from Hebrew Union College, and Ph.D. from Hebrew Union College.

How did you decide to become a biblical scholar? Share your autobiographical journey.

My answer to this question is always little embarrassing: Indiana Jones. As an incoming college freshman my interests included biology, history, Bible, forensics, and detective novels, so I decided to major in biblical archaeology and become the next Indiana Jones. Silly, right? But in all seriousness, my love for biblical archaeology and ancient Near Eastern history was sparked in the first class I took on biblical archaeology 20 years ago. During my undergrad I participated in a summer Holy Lands tour where I got to see the places I was studying first hand and participate in the Ashkelon excavations. After graduating I continued on for my MA in biblical archaeology, which required me to spend a summer digging at Tel Dor and a semester studying in Israel. I wrote my thesis on the use of architecture in the biblical text. I did my doctoral work at the Hebrew Union College (HUC) in Cincinnati. More→

Web Round Up #5

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Web Round Up provides links to relevant news from around the Web, including job openings, new books, articles on women biblical scholars, etc.

1. Festschrift in honor of Carol Meyers.

2. Karen Jobes on the Septuagint.

3. Follow Krista N. Dalton at the Ancient Jew Review here and here.

4. How many words are spoken by women in the Bible? Find the answer.

5. Ancient Jew Review interviews Jodi Magness on her excavations of the Galilean synagogue at Huqoq.

6. Call for Papers: “Writing Women’s Lives.” And SBL Call for Papers on “Recovering Female Interpreters of the Bible.”

7. Carrie Schroeder has a bibliography in progress on the Tura papyri. She welcomes corrections, suggestions, additions.

8. Margreet L. Steiner on identifying ancient archaeological sites.

9. New book on black evangelical female scholars.

10. Interactive chart that allows you to explore gendered language in teaching evaluations on RateMyProfessor.

11. SBL/AAR job report.

12. Job openings:

Visiting professor of religion at Syracuse University. Apply by April 1st.

Associate University Minister at University of San Diego

 

Interview: Karen H. Jobes

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JobesPicDr. Karen H. Jobes is Gerald F. Hawthorne Professor of New Testament Greek and Exegesis at Wheaton College and Graduate School. She earned her B.A from Trenton State College, M.S. from Rutgers University, M.A.R. from Westminster Theological Seminary, and Ph.D. from Westminster Theological Seminary. Her website can be found at karenjobes.com

 How did you decide to become a biblical scholar? Share your autobiographical journey.

About twelve years after becoming a Christian in college, I was teaching adult Sunday School in my church.  At the time I was working in software engineering and computer systems management but discovered how much I enjoyed teaching the Bible.  And of course I also became aware of how much I didn’t know and understand about the Bible.  In the mid-1980s I discerned a strong calling to attend seminary, which was confusing since I didn’t want to pastor. When I discovered the MA in Biblical Studies at Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia, I enrolled with the intent of returning to my computer work after two years of study.  But during that time the calling to academic teaching developed, and with the affirmation of my professors, I continued on to a PhD in Biblical Hermeneutics. More→

Anathea Portier-Young on War in the Old Testament and Healing for Soldiers Today

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Dr. Anathea Portier-Young is Associate Professor of Old Testament at Duke University Divinity School. She has studied and taught on the subject of violence in the Old Testament, as well as published on Jewish responses to violence in the Second Temple Period (Apocalypse Against Empire Theologies of Resistance in Early Judaism). In this brief video Portier-Young explores the possibility of finding meaning in biblical depictions of war and lament, including for today’s soldiers who seek healing from the trauma of modern day conflict.

On Being a Woman and A Bible Major

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Recently Sarah Schwartz asked her friend Julie Dykes to write a guest post putting “her experience as a female Biblical Studies major at a conservative evangelical university into words.” The post is a poignant reminder of the importance of mentoring young women who aspire to be biblical scholars especially if they are in contexts that discourage them from pursuing that possibility. We asked Dykes if we could republish her post here, and she graciously agreed.

“So, what’s your major?” they would ask for the millionth time, because that’s what college students do when they meet each other.

“Biblical and Theological studies,” I would reply with enthusiasm.

“Oh,” they would say, their eyebrows shooting up in surprise. “I never would’ve expected it. Well, what do you want to do with your major, then? Do you want to be a children’s pastor, or something?” More→

Interview: Jeannine K. Brown

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Brown PhotoDr. Jeannine K. Brown is Professor of New Testament at Bethel Seminary. She earned a B.A.  from University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire, M.Div from Bethel Seminary, and Ph.D. from Luther Seminary. You can visit her website (soon to be updated)  at jeanninekbrown.com

 

How did you decide to become a biblical scholar? Share your autobiographical journey.

I arrived at seminary (Bethel Seminary in St. Paul, MN) without any formal Bible training but with the goal of preparing for leading in a college student ministry in the years ahead. In my very first class at seminary, I fell in love with a deep study of the Bible and issues around biblical interpretation (hermeneutics). This study included original languages, a solid sense of context, and historical and cultural awareness.   More→

Web Round Up #4

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Web Round Up provides links to relevant news from around the Web, including job openings, new books, articles on women biblical scholars, etc.

1. Congratulations to Annette Yoshiko Reed who joined the editorial staff of Journal of Biblical Literature under the leadership of Adele Reinhartz!

2. Kristine Garroway writes on The Origins of the Biblical Pesach.

3. New book reviews from Review of Biblical Literature:

Pauline Allen
John Chrysostom, Homilies on Paul’s Letter to the Philippians
http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=9386

Musa W. Dube, Andrew M. Mbuvi, and Dora R. Mbuwayesango, eds.
Postcolonial Perspectives in African Biblical Interpretations
http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=8848

Anne Marie Kitz
Cursed Are You! The Phenomenology of Cursing in Cuneiform and Hebrew Texts
http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=9742

4. Presentation (vide0) by Debra Martin on interpreting remains at Tell Abraq (2200-2000 B.C.E.)

5. Alison Joseph published a new article on “Who Is Like David? Was David Like David? Good Kings in the Book of Kings”

6. Karen R. Keen writes on the reception history of the Bible in the film Noah.

7. Laurel Appleton excavates at Petra on an ASOR Fellowship

8. Adele Yarbro Collins’s lecture on women prophets in early Christianity is now available in audio.

9. The Other Journal is looking for an Assistant Theology Editor

10. Three post-docs open in France (Roman history, Rabbinic literature, and History of Christianity in antiquity):

Appel à candidatures – recrutement de trois chercheurs en contrat CDD à partir du 1er septembre 2015

Le programme ERC Re-thinking Judaism’s Encounter with the Roman Empire: Rome’s Political and Religious Challenge to Israel and its Impact on Judaism (2nd Century BCE – 7th Century CE) (acronyme : “Judaism and Rome”) propose pour le 1er septembre 2015 trois postes de chargés de recherche en CDD dans les domaines suivants :
a) Histoire romaine (avec si possible une compétence dans les sources juridiques romaines) (pour une durée de 2 ans) ;
b) Littérature rabbinique (pour une durée de 3 ans) ;
c) Histoire du christianisme antique (pour une durée de 3 ans).

Les candidats retenus seront recrutés par le CNRS et travailleront en collaboration avec Katell Berthelot, PI du projet “Judaism and Rome”, au sein du laboratoire Centre Paul-Albert Février – Textes et documents de la Méditerranée antique et médiévale (UMR 7297), une composante de la Maison Méditerranéenne des Sciences de l’Homme (voir www.cpaf.cnrs.fr et www.mmsh.univ-aix.fr).

Les candidatures doivent être envoyées avant le 15 mars 2015. Elles doivent inclure une lettre de candidature, une copie du diplôme de doctorat (ou un certificat établi par l’Université de rattachement si la soutenance est récente), le rapport de soutenance, un CV incluant la liste des publications, un échantillon des publications (thèse ou article), ainsi que les coordonnées (noms et e-mails) de deux personnes à qui pourront être demandées des lettres de recommandation. Ces pièces doivent être envoyées par mail à katell.b@free.fr ou berthelot@mmsh.univ-aix.fr
La date de prise de poste est le 1er septembre 2015.

Une description détaillée de chaque poste et des qualifications attendues peut être obtenue en écrivant à Katell Berthelot (katell.b@free.fr ou berthelot@mmsh.univ-aix.fr). Dans tous les cas, il sera exigé des candidats un excellent niveau d’anglais écrit, de manière à pouvoir traduire et commenter des sources anciennes en anglais.

 

 

Do You Know Where That Papyri Came From? Dr. Mazza on The Problem of Unknown Provenance

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In the brief video below, Dr. Roberta Mazza addresses whether or not scholars should publish materials that don’t have reliable acquisition data, including papyri of apparent biblical texts. She raises important questions such as:

What do we mean through the term ‘provenance’? What kind of information scholars need to access when collections or collectors ask them to publish an ancient manuscript or piece of art? Should we be guided by the law or ethic when making decisions? What should academics do in case they discover that a papyrus fragment or a Greek vase has a doubtful acquisition history? If we don’t publish, where such material will end up?

Dr. Mazza is lecturer in Classics and Ancient History at the University of Manchester, as well as a Research Fellow of the John Rylands Research Institute and honorary academic curator of the Graeco-Roman Egypt collection of the Manchester Museum. She blogs at Faces and Voices.