This paper evaluates the recent upsurge of interest in the scribal processes underlying the composition of Hittite ritual text and the implications of this evidence for understanding the compositional history of biblical rituals.

This paper evaluates the recent upsurge of interest in the scribal processes underlying the composition of Hittite ritual text and the implications of this evidence for understanding the compositional history of biblical rituals.

A brief report on my dissertation research.

Edition of cuneiform tablet excavated at Büklükale on the western Kızılırmak in 2010.

Syllabus for my course Jewish and Christian Scriptures at Augustana College. Most students who take the course are non-majors, and they take it to fulfill their “Christian Traditions” requirement. I focus on reading primary sources (both biblical and extra-canonical), supplementing with Bible Odyssey materials and pre-recorded online lectures.

Syllabus for my course Jewish and Christian Scriptures at Augustana College. Most students who take the course are non-majors, and they take it to fulfill their “Christian Traditions” requirement. I focus on reading primary sources (both biblical and extra-canonical), supplementing with Bible Odyssey materials and pre-recorded online lectures.

This article defends the disputed label “private creeds” as a useful one for describing a number of fourth century texts. Offering such a confession was the normal method for clearing one’s name on charges of heterodoxy in fourth-century Greek Christianity, though writing such a creed made the author susceptible to charges of innovation. A numbe…[Read more]

Argues that, reversing the trope of subjects visiting the magnificent, the Elohistic history has Yahweh interested in the simplest, flimsiest altars only, which he will visit when and where he is invited to do so. The implication rules out temple-altars and temples for their royal sponsorship.

Argues that, reversing the trope of subjects visiting the magnificent, the Elohistic history has Yahweh interested in the simplest, flimsiest altars only, which he will visit when and where he is invited to do so. The implication rules out temple-altars and temples for their royal sponsorship.

Analyzes Isaiah 40–48 as a single literary work through levels of speakers (frame and subordinate) with implications for its construction of divine potency and communication.

Analyzes Isaiah 40–48 as a single literary work through levels of speakers (frame and subordinate) with implications for its construction of divine potency and communication.

This is the first English translation of Gregory of Nyssa’s Christmas homily, In diem natalem Salvatoris. It will be published in Mark DelCogliano, ed. The Cambridge Edition of Early Christian Writings, Volume 3: Christ.

A re-assessment of what we know about women known as hetairai in Classical Greece within the context of the elite women from the 6th and early 5th centuries BCE.

In a 2012 article on Bultmann and Augustine, R. W. L. Moberly argued that the church should be understood as a “plausibility structure” for faith and thus a presupposition for the interpretation of Scripture. My response to him in 2014 addressed misinterpretations of Bultmann but did not speak to the central issue of the church as a pre…[Read more]

The story of Dinah’s violation in Genesis 34 has elicited radically different evaluations among exegetes. The present article attributes these divergent readings to the existence of distinct voices or moral positions in the text, particularly in relation to the issue of intermarriage. Beginning with a synchronic literary and ideological analysis o…[Read more]

This article analyzes the primary terms for purity in Biblical Hebrew, Ugaritic, Sumerian, Akkadian and Hittite. Building on insights from cognitive linguistics and embodiment theory, this study develops the premise that semantic structure – even of seemingly abstract concepts– is grounded in real-world bodily experience. An examination of pur…[Read more]