Jacob L. Wright

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Dr. Jacob L. Wright, Emory University Dr. Jacob L. Wright, Emory University.jpg
Dr. Jacob L. Wright, Emory University

Jacob L. Wright is a biblical scholar currently serving as professor of Hebrew Bible at Emory University. [1] Prior to his Emory appointment, Wright taught at the University of Heidelberg (Germany), one of the foremost research-oriented public universities in Europe, for several years. His areas of expertise include Biblical Archaeology, warfare in the Ancient Near East, and the literary and redaction history of the Hebrew Bible canon. He has published extensively throughout his career, authoring several books and dozens of articles which span topics such as Ezra-Nehemiah, the Persian period, warfare in the Ancient Near East; as well as the material culture of the ancient Levant, the unique role of women in the Hebrew Bible, and larger themes such as defeat, peoplehood, and national identity in the Hebrew Bible. Areas of concentration in war studies include war commemoration, urbicide and ritual violence, and feasting and gift-giving.

Contents

Background

After receiving his BA with honors at UMKC in 1996, majoring in history and Jewish Studies, with a minor in philosophy, Wright then matriculated at the University of Göttingen. During that time, Wright was also part of several research groups, including one collating the Cairo Geniza fragments of Avot de Rabbi Nathan, and another on early Jewish prayers in their narrative contexts, which was the first group in theology to receive the Emmy Noether Grant [2] from the German Research Foundation. He wrote his dissertation under Reinhard Gregor Kratz as his first doctoral student.

After being granted a Doctor Theologiae from Göttingen in 2003, he worked as part of the editorial team for De Gruyter in Berlin preparing an exhaustive list of lemmata for the Encyclopedia of the Bible and Its Reception History. [3] In 2004, he was hired as Jan Gertz's [4] first assistant in his chair at the University of Heidelberg where he taught courses, began an Habilitation, and participated for several seasons at the Ramat Rachel Excavations with Oded Lipschits and Manfred Oeming. [5] In 2007, he took a position at Emory University as assistant professor of Hebrew Bible, later earning tenure and being promoted to associate professor in 2012.

Academic career

Wright's first monograph, The Nehemiah Memoir and Its Earliest Readers [6] (2005), builds on an approach from Kratz, arguing that while Nehemiah's first-person account goes back to an early account written by Nehemiah himself (or a commissioned scribe), later generations greatly expanded it (above all, with the reform accounts in chapters 5 and 13). He also contends that the critique of the priesthood (and other members of the aristocracy) in these passages provoked the composition of the larger book of Ezra-Nehemiah: first the building account in Ezra 1-6 (without the letter to Artaxerxes that specifically polemicized against the wall project), then the Ezra first-person travel account in Ezra 7–8, and finally the marriage reforms and the formation of "a people of the book" in Nehemiah 8–10. Beyond its historical implications, the book attends to diachronic method [7] throughout, seeking to bridge the gap between final-form [8] readings of Tamara Cohn Eskenazi and the source-based approach that Baruch Spinoza first introduced to the study of Ezra-Nehemiah. In addition, Wright has written many articles on the Persian Period and Ezra-Nehemiah along with short commentaries on the book. [9]

In 2014, Wright launched a MOOC on Coursera entitled TheBible's Prehistory, Purpose, and Political Future, [10] to a worldwide audience of learners. The number of students who enrolled since its launch stands at more than 60,000. [1] In this course, he draws from archaeology, the historiographical approach of longue durée, and redaction criticism to put forth a new paradigm for understanding the impetus of the formation of the canon of the Hebrew Bible. His thesis is that the Bible is a project of peoplehood, a collection of disparate oral traditions, laws, and religious texts drawn together as a way to create a national identity for a diasporic post-exilic people, grappling with a catastrophic defeat. This thesis builds upon the current European trend within scholarship to date the composition of biblical texts from after the exile in 587 BCE, with some supplements even as late as the Persian or Hellenistic period.

Wright's monograph War, Memory, and National Identity in the Hebrew Bible, (published in OpenAccess format), is a technical exploration of the themes of national identity, peoplehood, and belonging. He asserts that the collective memories of peoplehood are shaped through war and conflict, and that any peoplehood thinking must be political (contrary to the position espoused by the German scholar Julius Wellhausen [11] ). He utilizes in particular the diachronic method to illustrate how various local tribes and people groups negotiated their belonging to ancient Israel through war service, and commemoration of their participation in various regional battles. The texts he examines are largely from the books of Joshua and Judges, where he gives considerable space to highlighting important women in the Bible, among whom are Rahab, whose tale epitomizes the archetypical outsider; and figures like Deborah and Jael for their significance in subverting male power.

Publications

Books

Edited Volumes

Articles

Awards and recognition

Related Research Articles

The Book of Chronicles is a book in the Hebrew Bible, found as two books in the Christian Old Testament. Chronicles is the final book of the Hebrew Bible, concluding the third section of the Jewish Tanakh, the Ketuvim ("Writings"). It contains a genealogy starting with Adam and a history of ancient Judah and Israel up to the Edict of Cyrus in 539 BC.

The Book of Ezra is a book of the Hebrew Bible which formerly included the Book of Nehemiah in a single book, commonly distinguished in scholarship as Ezra–Nehemiah. The two became separated with the first printed rabbinic bibles of the early 16th century, following late medieval Latin Christian tradition. Composed in Hebrew and Aramaic, its subject is the Return to Zion following the close of the Babylonian captivity. Together with the Book of Nehemiah, it represents the final chapter in the historical narrative of the Hebrew Bible.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Book of Nehemiah</span> Book of the Bible

The Book of Nehemiah in the Hebrew Bible, largely takes the form of a first-person memoir by Nehemiah, a Jew who is a high official at the Persian court, concerning the rebuilding of the walls of Jerusalem after the Babylonian exile and the dedication of the city and its people to God's laws (Torah).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ezra</span> Figure in early Jewish history

Ezra was an important Jewish scribe (sofer) and priest (kohen) in the early Second Temple period according to the Hebrew Bible. In the Greek Septuagint, the name is rendered as Ésdrās, from which the Latin name Esdras comes. His name is probably a shortened Aramaic translation of the Hebrew name עזריהו‎, meaning "Yah helps".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">History of ancient Israel and Judah</span>

The history of ancient Israel and Judah spans from the early appearance of the Israelites in Canaan's hill country during the late second millennium BCE, to the establishment and subsequent downfall of the two Israelite kingdoms in the mid-first millennium BCE. This history unfolds within the Southern Levant during the Iron Age. The earliest documented mention of "Israel" as a people appears on the Merneptah Stele, an ancient Egyptian inscription dating back to around 1208 BCE. Archaeological evidence suggests that ancient Israelite culture evolved from the pre-existing Canaanite civilization. During the Iron Age II period, two Israelite kingdoms emerged, covering much of Canaan: the Kingdom of Israel in the north and the Kingdom of Judah in the south.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Israelites</span> Iron Age Hebrew tribal people in Canaan

The Israelites were a Hebrew-speaking ethnoreligious group consisting of tribes that inhabited much of Canaan during the Iron Age.

1 Esdras, also Esdras A, Greek Esdras, Greek Ezra, or 3 Esdras, is the ancient Greek Septuagint version of the biblical Book of Ezra in use within the early church, and among many modern Christians with varying degrees of canonicity. 1 Esdras is substantially similar to the standard Hebrew version of Ezra–Nehemiah, with the passages specific to the career of Nehemiah removed or re-attributed to Ezra, and some additional material.

The patriarchal age is the era of the three biblical patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, according to the narratives of Genesis 12–50. It is preceded in the Bible by the primeval history and followed by The Exodus.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nehemiah</span> Central figure of the biblical Book of Nehemiah

Nehemiah is the central figure of the Book of Nehemiah, which describes his work in rebuilding Jerusalem during the Second Temple period. He was governor of Persian Judea under Artaxerxes I of Persia.

Ezra–Nehemiah is a book in the Hebrew Bible found in the Ketuvim section, originally with the Hebrew title of Ezra, called Esdras B in the Septuagint. The book covers the period from the fall of Babylon in 539 BCE to the second half of the 5th century BCE, and tells of the successive missions to Jerusalem of Zerubbabel, Ezra, and Nehemiah, and their efforts to restore the worship of the God of Israel and to create a purified Jewish community. It is the only part of the Bible that narrates the Persian period of biblical history.

Gerald "Gary" Neil Knoppers was a professor in the Department of Theology at University of Notre Dame. He wrote books and articles regarding a range of Old Testament and ancient Near Eastern topics. He is particularly renowned for his work on 1 Chronicles, writing I Chronicles 1 – 9 and I Chronicles 10 – 29, which together comprise a significant treatment of the work of the Chronicler. In May 2005 the Canadian Society of Biblical Studies granted the R. B. Y. Scott Award to Knoppers for his two-volume Anchor Bible commentary on I Chronicles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Return to Zion</span> Biblical event

The return to Zion is an event recorded in Ezra–Nehemiah of the Hebrew Bible, in which the Jews of the Kingdom of Judah—subjugated by the Neo-Babylonian Empire—were freed from the Babylonian captivity following the Persian conquest of Babylon. In 539 BCE, the Persian king Cyrus the Great issued the Edict of Cyrus allowing the Jews to return to Jerusalem and the Land of Judah, which was made a self-governing Jewish province under the new Persian Empire.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Origins of Judaism</span> Overview of the early history of Judaism

The most widespread belief among archeological and historical scholars is that the origins of Judaism lie in Bronze Age polytheistic Canaanite religion. Judaism also syncretized elements of other Semitic religions such as Babylonian religion, which is reflected in the early prophetic books of the Tanakh.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Yehud Medinata</span> Province of the Achaemenid Empire

Yehud Medinata, also called Yehud Medinta or simply Yehud, was an autonomous province of the Achaemenid Empire. Located in Judea, the territory was distinctly Jewish, with the High Priest of Israel emerging as a central religious and political leader. It lasted for just over two centuries before being incorporated into the Hellenistic empires, which emerged following the Greek conquest of the Persian Empire.

Hugh Godfrey Maturin Williamson is a theologian and academic. He was Regius Professor of Hebrew at the University of Oxford from 1992 to 2014, a position he now holds as Emeritus.

Tamara Cohn Eskenazi is The Effie Wise Ochs Professor of Biblical Literature and History at the Reform Jewish seminary Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in Los Angeles.

David John Alfred Clines was a biblical scholar. He served as professor at the University of Sheffield.

Carol Ann Newsom is an American biblical scholar, historian of ancient Judaism, and literary critic. She is the Charles Howard Candler Professor Emerita of Old Testament at the Candler School of Theology and a former senior fellow at the Center for the Study of Law and Religion at Emory University. She is a leading expert on the Dead Sea Scrolls, Wisdom literature, and the Book of Daniel.

Ehud Ben Zvi is a historian of ancient Israel with a focus on the Achaemenid period and a scholar of the Hebrew Bible with a focus on Social Memory. He is Professor Emeritus in the Department of History, Classics and Religion at the University of Alberta.

Mark J. Boda is a Canadian academic and Old Testament scholar, specializing in the literature and theology of the Old Testament.

References

  1. 1 2 "Associate Professor of Hebrew Bible | Emory University | Atlanta, GA". candler.emory.edu. Retrieved 2022-05-07.
  2. 1 2 "Emmy Noether Programme". www.dfg.de. Retrieved 2022-05-07.
  3. ↑ "Encyclopedia of the Bible and Its Reception Online". De Gruyter. 2010-10-31. Retrieved 2022-12-02.
  4. ↑ "Prof. Dr. Jan Christian Gertz". www.uni-heidelberg.de. Retrieved 2022-05-09.
  5. 1 2 "BACK TO RAMAT RAHEL: WHAT DO WE WANT TO FIND". www.tau.ac.il. Retrieved 2022-05-07.
  6. 1 2 Wright, Jacob L. (2012-10-24). Rebuilding Identity. De Gruyter. doi:10.1515/9783110927207. ISBN   978-3-11-092720-7.
  7. ↑ Noble, Paul R. (1993). "Synchronic and Diachronic Approaches to Biblical Interpretation". Literature and Theology. 7 (2): 130–148. doi:10.1093/litthe/7.2.130. ISSN   0269-1205. JSTOR   23924860.
  8. ↑ "Sources, layers, authors, and editors are of little interest to the theologian of the final form of the text, and creative exegesis of the final form has little impact on the historical inquiries as to how the text came to have its canonical shape." Baden, Joel S. "Connecting Literary-Historical and Final-Form Readings". Bible Interp. Retrieved 2022-12-02.
  9. ↑ Notes to articles, and commentaries on, can be found here: "Jacob Wright - Emory University". Academia.edu. 2011-07-20. Retrieved 2022-12-02.
  10. ↑ "Emory on Coursera: The Bible's prehistory, purpose and political future | Emory University | Atlanta GA". news.emory.edu. Retrieved 2022-05-07.
  11. ↑ See page 1 of the introduction to the book, War, Memory, and National Identity in the Hebrew Bible, to understand how Wright frames the position taken by Julius Wellhausen.
  12. ↑ Wright, Jacob L. (2023). Why the Bible Began: An Alternative History of Scripture and its Origins. Cambridge University Press. ISBN   9781108859240.
  13. ↑ Wright, Jacob L. (July 2020). War, Memory, and National Identity in the Hebrew Bible. Cambridge Core. doi:10.1017/9781108691512. ISBN   9781108691512. S2CID   225450906 . Retrieved 2022-05-07.
  14. ↑ "David, King of Israel, and Caleb in Biblical Memory | Judaism". Cambridge University Press. Retrieved 2022-05-08.
  15. ↑ King David and His Reign Revisited.
  16. 1 2 Olyan, Saul M.; Wright, Jacob L. (4 May 2018). Supplementation and the Study of the Hebrew Bible. SBL Press. ISBN   978-1946527059.
  17. ↑ Farber, Zev; Wright, Jacob L. (2018). Archaeology and History of Eighth-century Judah. SBL Press. ISBN   978-0884143475.
  18. ↑ Kelle, Brad E.; Ritchel, Ames Frank; Jacob, Wright L. (3 June 2014). Warfare, Ritual, and Symbol in Biblical and Modern Contexts. SBL Press. ISBN   978-1589839588.
  19. 1 2 Making a Difference: Essays on the Bible and Judaism in Honor of Tamara Cohn Eskenazi. Sheffield Phoenix Press. 18 October 2012.
  20. 1 2 Kelle, Brad; Ames, Frank Richard; Wright, Jacob L., eds. (2012-02-23). Interpreting Exile: Displacement and Deportation in Biblical and Modern Contexts. Brill. ISBN   978-90-04-21166-7.
  21. ↑ "Rahab: Between Faith and Works | Bible Interp". bibleinterp.arizona.edu. Retrieved 2022-05-08.
  22. ↑ "Genderbending Performances in Wartime: From Judges to Judith". American Society of Overseas Research (ASOR). Retrieved 2022-05-09.
  23. ↑ "A Companion to the Achaemenid Persian Empire, 2 Volume Set | Wiley". Wiley.com. Retrieved 2022-05-09.
  24. ↑ Philippson, Ludwig; Homolka, Walter (2015). תורה: Die fünf Bücher Mose und die Prophetenlesungen (Hebräisch-deutsch) in der revidierten Übersetzung von Rabbiner Ludwig Philippsons. Herder. ISBN   978-3451333347.
  25. ↑ "Worship, Women and War: Essays in Honor of Susan Niditch | Judaic Studies at Brown University | Brown University". www.brown.edu. Retrieved 2022-05-09.
  26. ↑ Olyan, Saul M., ed. (2016). Ritual Violence in the Hebrew Bible: New Perspectives. New York: Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780190249588.001.0001. ISBN   978-0-19-024958-8.
  27. ↑ Berlin, Adele; Brettler, Marc Zvi, eds. (2014-11-20). The Jewish Study Bible (Second ed.). New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN   978-0-19-997846-5.
  28. ↑ Master, Daniel; Zangenberg, Jürgen K.; Faust, Avraham; Nakhai, Beth Alpert; White, L. Michael (2013-07-18). Oxford Encyclopedia of the Bible and Archaeology. Oxford Encyclopedias of the Bible. Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN   978-0-19-984653-5.
  29. ↑ Römer, Thomas; Durand, Jean-Marie (2011-10-01). "Comment devient-on prophète ?". La lettre du Collège de France (in French) (32): 16. doi: 10.4000/lettre-cdf.1329 . ISSN   1628-2329.
  30. ↑ WRIGHT, JACOB L.; CHAN, MICHAEL J. (2012). "King and Eunuch: Isaiah 56:1—8 in Light of Honorific Royal Burial Practices". Journal of Biblical Literature. 131 (1): 99–119. doi:10.2307/23488214. ISSN   0021-9231. JSTOR   23488214. S2CID   161691303.
  31. ↑ Wright, Jacob L. (December 2011). "Making a Name for Oneself: Martial Valor, Heroic Death, and Procreation in the Hebrew Bible". Journal for the Study of the Old Testament. 36 (2): 131–162. doi:10.1177/0309089211423732. ISSN   0309-0892. S2CID   154850291.
  32. ↑ Wright, Jacob L. (2011-12-01). "Deborah's War Memorial. The Composition of Judges 4–5 and the Politics of War Commemoration". Zeitschrift für die Alttestamentliche Wissenschaft (in German). 123 (4): 516–534. doi:10.1515/ZAW.2011.034. ISSN   1613-0103. S2CID   155189724.
  33. ↑ "War and Peace in Jewish Tradition: From the Biblical World to the Present". Routledge & CRC Press. Retrieved 2022-05-09.
  34. ↑ Wright, Jacob L. (2011). "War Commemoration and the Interpretation of Judges 5:15b-17". Vetus Testamentum. 61 (3): 505–521. doi:10.1163/156853311X585586. ISSN   0042-4935.
  35. ↑ Wright, Jacob. הראשית העגומה של העם היהודי [The Sad Beginning of the Jewish People]. Academia.
  36. ↑ "Judah and the Judeans in the Achaemenid Period: Negotiating Identity in an International Context Edited by Oded Lipschits, Gary N. Knoppers, and Manfred Oeming". www.eisenbrauns.org. Retrieved 2022-05-09.
  37. ↑ "Eisenbrauns - An Imprint of Penn State University Press". www.eisenbrauns.org. Retrieved 2022-05-10.
  38. ↑ Was 1 Esdras First?: An Investigation into the Priority and Nature of 1 Esdras. Society of Biblical Lit. 2011. ISBN   978-1589835443.
  39. ↑ "A Nation Conceived in Defeat | Azure". azure.org.il. Retrieved 2022-05-09.
  40. ↑ Ed. by Louis Jonker (2010). Historiography and identity (re)formulation in Second Temple historiographical literature. (The library of Hebrew Bible/Old Testament studies; 534). Bloomsbury T&T Clark. ISBN   978-0-567-41062-7.
  41. 1 2 "The New Interpreter's® Bible One-Volume Commentary". Abingdon Press. Retrieved 2022-05-09.
  42. ↑ Wright, Jacob L. (2009). "The Commemoration of Defeat and the Formation of a Nation in the Hebrew Bible". Prooftexts. 29 (3): 433–472. doi:10.2979/pft.2009.29.3.433. ISSN   0272-9601. JSTOR   10.2979/pft.2009.29.3.433. S2CID   154200568.
  43. ↑ Sakenfeld, Katharine Doob (August 2009). The New Interpreter's Dictionary of the Bible. Abingdon Press. ISBN   978-0687333462.
  44. ↑ Boda, Mark J.; Redditt, Paul L. (2008). Unity and Disunity in Ezra-Nehemiah: Redaction, Rhetoric, and Reader. Sheffield Phoenix Press. ISBN   978-1906055400.
  45. ↑ Kelle, Brad; Ames, Frank Richard, eds. (2008-12-17). Writing and Reading War: Rhetoric, Gender, and Ethics in Biblical and Modern Contexts. Brill. ISBN   978-90-04-13759-2.
  46. ↑ Wright, Jacob. "War and Wanton Destruction: A Case Against Anti-Assyrian Polemics in Deuteronomy". Academia.
  47. ↑ Wright, Jacob. "Writing the Restoration: Ezra as Meritocratic Icon in the Post-Destruction Period". Academia.[ clarification needed ]
  48. 1 2 "The Journal of Hebrew Scriptures". jhsonline.org. Retrieved 2022-05-10.
  49. ↑ "NEH-Mellon Fellowships for Digital Publication". The National Endowment for the Humanities. Retrieved 2022-05-10.
  50. ↑ "The Herzl Institute – Machon Herzl". The Herzl Institute – Machon Herzl. Retrieved 2022-05-10.
  51. ↑ "MFJC" . Retrieved 2022-05-10.
  52. ↑ "The John Templeton Award for Theological Promise – The Manfred Lautenschlaeger Award for Theological Promise Winners 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014". www.uni-heidelberg.de. Retrieved 2022-05-09.
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