Biblical Studies seminar archive

2025/2026

    • 18 September – Welcome tea
    • 25 September – William Tooman (St Andrews), “Crafting Complexity: Character Comparison/Contrast in Ancient Greek and Hebrew Literature”
    • 2 October – Joachim Schaper (Aberdeen), “‘But thou hast arranged all things by measure and number and weight’: Cosmology and Justice in the Hebrew Bible and Ancient Judaism”
    • 9 October – Alexiana Fry (Copenhagen), “‘Golah, Golah, Golah, Golah’ (Est. 2.6): Exile, Diaspora, and Trauma in MT Esther” (Teams)
    • 16 October – Alice Mandell (John Hopkins), “Top-Down and Bottom-Up: The Topsy-Turvy Monumentality of Ancient Judean Tombs” (Teams)
    • 23 October – No seminar (Independent Learning Week)
    • 30 October – Nathanael Vette (KCL), “Noon of the Living Dead: Roman Omens and Matthew’s Zombie Apocalypse (27:52–53)”
    • 6 November – Philip Alexander (Manchester), “Rabbinic Judaism and the New Testament—Reconsiderations after Forty Years”
    • 13 November – Bruno Biermann (Münster), “‘Who Set Me as a Seal …?’ Historical and Archaeological Perspectives on the Remembering and Forgetting Seal Wear in the Hebrew Bible” (Teams)
    • 20 November – No seminar (SBL)
    • 27 November – Yeshwanth Bakkavemana (St Andrews), “Widening the Methodological Horizons: Introducing the Psychology of Persuasion to the Sectarian Dead Sea Scrolls”
    • 4 December – Madison Pierce (St Andrews), “The Texts Make the Man: Scriptural Interpretation and ‘Messianism’ in the New Testament”

    • 5 February – Zara Zhang (St Andrews) “Inner-biblical Allusion: A New Methodology”
    • 12 February – Dr Anna Maia Bortz (Mainz) “Puns, Ambiguities and Rhizomorphic Text Structures in the Book of Hosea”
    • 19 February – IBTH Postgraduate Symposium Brainstorming Session
    • 26 February – Dr Nina Maksimova and Prof William Tooman (St Andrews) “BiblioBibuli: A Story”
    • 5 March – No seminar (Spring Vacation)
    • 12 March – Riane McConnell (St Andrews) “In the Law’s Shadow, She Speak”
    • 19 March – Tommy Robertson (St Andrews) “Reading the Imago Dei with Animals”
    • 26 March – Keith Pinckney (St Andrews) “The Problem of Returning to Egypt: Disintegrating Israelite Ethnic Identity”
    • 2 April – Noah Langston, (St Andrews) “Eldritch Abominations, Cosmic Terrors, and the Divine Monster: The Book of Ezekiel in Dialogue with H.P. Lovecraft and Horror Theory”
    • 9 April – No seminar (Independent Learning Week)
    • 16 April – Emily Page (St Andrews) “The Embodied Self in Proverbs and Egyptian Aspective Art”
    • 23 April – Haley Kirkpatrick (St Andrews) “Good Rule in Chronicles: The King as Shepherd”
    • 30 April – Prof Caroline Waerzeggers (Leiden) “Babylon After Babel: Babylonia in the Persian and Hellenistic Periods”

  • This year’s seminar focused on foundational works of modern NT scholarship. These are works that have defined what we commonly refer to as the ‘discipline’ of NT Studies. As it stands, this anthology of ‘classic works’ remains almost entirely German-speaking and masculine. (This will change in future anthologies of the discipline; how might this change?) Issues of cultural and personal identity should be focal concerns for any history, but they are always intertwined with other macro and micro variables of life: environment, geography, culture, government, technology, economy, war, family, catastrophe, happenstance, and so forth. Modern NT scholars have been at their best when reading the NT in its context, with heighten attentiveness to macro and micro variables. Modern NT scholars are also at their best when reading the history of their discipline with this same attentiveness.  
    As we read these works, three questions should always be at the forefront of our critical sympathy and scrutiny: What about this seems right? What about this seems wrong? In either case, why?

2024/2025

    • 19 September – Professor John Barclay (Durham) “Threatened with Sale? The Occasion, Strategy, and Purpose of Paul’s Letter to Philemon”
    • 26 September – Welcome Tea
    • 3 October – Dr Sam Newington (Aberdeen) “Monstrous Necessity in Greek and Biblical Creation Narratives”
    • 10 October – Professor Joan Taylor (King’s College London) “Remembering Baby Jesus: The Infancy Narrative of Matthew and Family Memory”
    • 17 October – Dr Kelsie Rodenbiker (Glasgow) “Antiquity, Accuracy, and the Eras of Scriptural
    • Production”
    • 24 October – No seminar (Independent Learning Week)
    • 31 October – Professor Angelika Berlejung (Leipzig) “Welcome, but do not cross the lines! How the Babylonians Treated Foreigners” (Online)
    • 7 November – Professor David Janzen (Durham) “The Hermeneutical Misunderstanding of Meaning in White Biblical Studies, and One Ethical Solution”
    • 14 November – Professor Reinhard Müller (Göttingen) “The Word That Is Near: The Theological Significance of Deuteronomy 30:11-14” (Online)
    • 21 November – Dr Andrews Boakye (Manchester) “In Order that I Might Live to God: Galatians and the Life of the Messianic Age” (Online)
    • 28 November – Professor Marc can den Mieroop (Columbia) “New Trends in Ancient Mesopotamian Studies” (Online)

    • 6 February – Professor James Davila (St Andrews) “The Book of Giants”
    • 13 February – Dr Michael Lyons (St Andrews) “Scribal Assimilation as Inter-textual Allusion”
    • 20 February – Professor Anselm Hagedorn (Osnabruck) “Cant 3:1–5 and Hellenistic Gynaikonomoi: A Proposal”
    • 27 February – Dr Madhavi Nevader (St Andrews) “Seconding Moses? Reading Ezekiel in Conversation with and against Moses”
    • 6 March – No seminar (Spring Vacation)
    • 13 March – Dr Tobias Siegenthaler (St Andrews) “Scribes at Work at Me-turan (Tell-Haddad)”
    • 20 March – Professor Ronnie Goldstein (HUJI) “Magic and the Hebrew Bible: Some Old/New Cases”
    • 27 March – Professor Bruce Wells (Austin) “Are There Signs of Legal Education for Biblical Scribes?” (online)
    • 3 April – Dr Suzanna Millar (Edinburgh) “Animals, Power, and Intersectionality in the Books of Samuel”
    • 10 April – No seminar (Independent Learning Week)
    • 17 April – Dr Leah Cleath (Princeton) “Royal Scribal Performance: Imperial Treaty Contact Zone” (online)
    • 24 April – Dr Madadh Richey (Brandeis) “The Nimrud Ninurta Reliefs: Doubling, Mirroring, and Elite Assyrian Visual Culture”
    • 1 May – Dr Doren Snoeck (St Andrews) “Did an Ephraimite Woman Build Cities”

    • 4 February – Professor David Moffitt (St Andrews) “Jesus’s Sacrifice in Romans”
    • 11 February – Jonathan Hunter (St Andrews) “Colometry, Cognition, and Time: An Approach to Reading Ancient Greek Prose”
    • 18 February – Seminar cancelled
    • 25 February – Tessa Hayashida (St Andrews) “The Transfigured Community: An Intertextual Reading of Luke 9:28-36”
    • 4 March – No seminar (Spring vacation)
    • 11 March – Gwangsoo Lee (St Andrews) “The Shepherd-Sheep Analogy of Plato and Philo”
    • 18 March – Professor Joey Dodson (Denver Seminary) “Unsolved Mysteries and Burdensome Superstitions: Seneca’s Epistle 95 and the Colossian Error”
    • 25 March – Professor Louise Lawrence (Exeter) “Age, Ageing, and Disability in Early Christianity”
    • 1 April – Professor Matthew Novenson (Princeton Seminary) “The Universal Polytheism and the Case of the Apostle Paul”
    • 8 April – No seminar (Independent Learning Week)
    • 15 April – Joel Butcher (St Andrews) “Matthew’s Evocation of Isaiah’s God-With Statements beyond the Immanuel Quotation: A Production-Oriented Intertextual Approach”
    • 29 April – Dr Matt Sharp (St Andrews) “Supercelestial Gods Among Pagans, Jews, and Christians”
    • 1 July – Dr David Wilhite (Baylor University) “Jesus is ‘Lord’ in the Earliest Christian Sources: Tracing YHWH Christology” (Bespoke session)

2023/2024

    • 14 September – Welcome Tea
    • 21 September – Professor Alexander Samely (Manchester), “Imagining (Self-)Critical Reader Contexts and Encountering Otherness in Reading.”
    • 28 September – Dr Albert Coetsee (North-West University, South Africa) – “When He Brings the Firstborn into the World’: The Entrance Motif in Hebrews 1:6.”
    • 5 October – Professor Hugh Williamson (Oxford), “Don’t Forget Adonis! Reflections on Isaiah 17:10–11.”
    • 12 October – Dr David Moffitt (St Andrews), “Ransom Redivivus: The Handing Over of God’s Son to Death and Hellenistic Sacrifice to Chthonic Gods.”
    • 19 October – No Seminar, Reading Week
    • 26 October – Dr Kelly Liebengood, “The Problem of Temple, Priesthood, Race, and Nation in 1 Peter: Exploring 1 Pet 2:4–10 after Supersessionism.”
    • 2 November – Professor Eckart Frahm (Yale), Reception History of Enuma Elish (title tbc)**
    • 9 November – Veronica Vandervliet (St Andrews), “Reading Biblical Hebrew Poetry Through the Lens of Information Structure Theory.”
    • 16 November – Dr Sam Newington (Aberdeen), “Monsters in the Biblical and Classical World” (title tbc)”
    • 23 November – No Seminar, SBL
    • 30 November – Professor Caroline Humfress (St Andrews), “Comparative History of Ancient Law.”

    • 18 January – Welcome tea
    • 25 January – Professor James Davila (St Andrews) “More Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, Volume 2: A Preview”
    • 1 February – No seminar (Zürich postgraduate colloquium)
    • 8 February – Professor Dr Nicla De Zorzi (Universität Wien) “The Construction of Human-Animal Relationship in Babylonian Divination: The Bird Omens from the Divinatory Series Šumma ālu ina mēlê šakin, ‘If a city is set on a height’” (online)
    • 15 February – Professor Dr Joachim Krause (Ruhr-Universität Bochum) “Reflections of Pan-Israelite Identity: A View from the Book of Amos”
    • 22 February – Dr David Reimer (St Andrews) “The Lonely God? Perspectives from the Hebrew Bible”
    • 29 February – No seminar (Spring Break)
    • 7 March – Dr Michael Lyons, (St Andrews) “The Anatomy of Commentary: Reflections on Ezekiel”
    • 14 March – Professor Jonathan Klawans (Boston) “Nastiness, Nonsense, and Abuse: Moral and Methodological Reflections on Morton Smith’s Analysis of Letter to Theodore” (online)
    • 21 March – Prof Dr Corinne Körting (Universität Hamburg) “Authority of the Prophets based on the Books of Zechariah and Malachi” (online)
    • 28 Mar – Dr Madhavi Nevader (St Andrews) “Mountaintop Worlds: The Utopian Enterprise of Deuteronomy and Ezekiel 40–48”

    • 23 January – Dr T.J. Lang (University of St Andrews), “Bright-eyed Athena and Burning Hearts: Encountering Divine Beings in the Cosmos”
    • 30 January – Dr Tyler Hoagland (University of St Andrews), “Restoring the Kingdom to the Holy Ones: The Use of Daniel in Acts 1.”
    • 6 February – Dr Andrew J. Byers (University of Cambridge), “Narrative Ecclesiology: How the Canonical Gospels Reflect and Shape Early Christian Social Identity”
    • 13 February – Alicia Hein (University of St Andrews), “Elijah Is the People: A Central Key to the Book of Revelation.” (online)
    • 20 February – Dr David M. Moffitt (University of St Andrews), “Exploring Hebrews’ Kaleidoscopic Engagement with the Old Testament”
    • 27 February – February Break, No Seminar
    • 5 March – Dr J. Thomas Hewitt (University of Aberdeen), “Christ Above and Colossians”
    • 12 March – Eric Foster-Whiddon (University of St Andrews), “What has Callirhoe to do with Jesus? Reading the Fourth Gospel with Ancient Novels”
    • 19 March – Dr Jane M. F. Heath (Durham University), “Clement of Alexandria and the Judgement of Taste”
    • 26 March – Professor Dr Stefan Alkier (Goethe Universität, Frankfurt am Main), “Intertextuality as Intermediality”
    • 2 April – Melissa Barciela Mandala (University of St Andrews), “Christ’s Suffering Body and Ancient Philosophical Exemplarity in Philippians 2:5–13”
    • 14 May (bespoke) – Professor Paul Anderson (George Fox University)
    • 27 May (bespoke) – Professor Maren Niehoff (The Hebrew University of Jerusalem)

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