Uses social poetics to analyze talk in the Bible of looking at Yahweh’s face

The Rosen Vocabulary is an Old Babylonian bilingual text. Through an edition of this text, I argue that the ad-hoc mixed vocabularies known from the Old Babylonian period feature citations or allusions to literary compositions as well as subsequent analogous expressions, both in Sumerian and in Akkadian.

Sumerian lexical and literary compositions both emerged from the same social sphere, namely scribal education. The complexities of inter-compositional dependence in these two corpora have not been thoroughly explored, particularly as relevant to questions of text-building during the Old Babylonian period (c. 1800–1600 bce). Copying practices e…[Read more]

In Old Babylonian Sumerian literature, the temporal phrases u₄-ba and u₄-bi-a typically occur in complementary distribution. Previous analyses have focused on morphological disparity to differentiate the two. The present paper considers pragmatic functions within a larger discourse structure, analyzing them as discourse markers, specifically tem…[Read more]

Sumerian and Akkadian language contact in the early part of the second millennium BCE. The article discusses prevalent language ideologies based on native metalinguistic discourse in comparison with language use in practice with the phrase mu—pad₃ = nīš—itma ‘(s)he swore an oath’ as a case study.

Burton Mack has made a number of important contributions to the study of early Christianity. One of, if not the most significant of these contributions is his use of the analytical categories of mythmaking and social formation in his construction of a social theory of religion. The analysis of mythmaking and social formation in early Christianity…[Read more]

Hugo Lundhaug and Lance Jenott offer a sustained argument for the monastic provenance of the Nag Hammadi Codices. They examine the arguments for and against a monastic Sitz im Leben and defend the view that the Codices were produced and read by Christian monks, most likely Pachomians, in the fourth- and fifth-century monasteries of Upper Egypt.…[Read more]

This new contribution to the Interpretation Resources for the Use of Scripture in the Early Church limits itself to apocryphal Gospels. Bockmuehl states in his introductory chapter his approach is both accessible and nonsensational (29), in contrast other recent books which describe this literature as suppressed by the establishment and containing…[Read more]

As a paratext, the colophon’s functions can be summarily and quickly described. It marks the ending of a text. In the era before printing this was a necessity, so that later copyists would know that they had a complete text before them to reproduce. This is the case with many Egyptian and Akkadkian colophons. As such, a colophon is an assertion o…[Read more]

This article describes the main contours of Greco-Roman and Jewish friendship trad- itions, and considers some of the ways that these traditions were adopted and adapted in New Testament texts. The survey suggests that early Christian writers drew on friendship traditions as a way of articulating certain important values relating to the need to…[Read more]

Joseph and Aseneth is a pseudepigraphic hellenistic romance novel that elaborates on the biblical character of Joseph and his wife aseneth. an expansion of genesis 41: 45, the text describes how aseneth is transformed into a radiant bride t for Joseph, and is thereby associated with his god.1 previous studies may have overstepped the limits of…[Read more]

In this article, I address the challenge of fostering better student engagement with ancient material, and discuss my experience with designing a course around creative use of technology. In my recent course, “The Ancient Christian Church: 54–604 CE,” I employed several tactics to encourage student engagement with ancient and modern sources, which…[Read more]

This paper argues that 4 Ezra 14 represents the climax of the sensory revelations experienced by Ezra, and as such, that this is the episode which finally facilitates Ezra’s understanding of divine wisdom. In each of episodes one through six Ezra is incapable of making sense of what has been revealed to him, even though Ezra’s sensory rev…[Read more]

Job 38:8-11 plays an important role in the first divine speech at the end of Job. This article makes a text-critical and literary argument that the stanza primarily emphasizes God’s powerful control over the Sea, in continuity with the preceding poetic unit whose theme is God’s singular power and Job’s incommensurability. However, vv 8-11 also…[Read more]

Job 38:8-11 plays an important role in the first divine speech at the end of Job. This article makes a text-critical and literary argument that the stanza primarily emphasizes God’s powerful control over the Sea, in continuity with the preceding poetic unit whose theme is God’s singular power and Job’s incommensurability. However, vv 8-11 also…[Read more]

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.