Teaching

In my university lecturing, I teach introductory and advanced modules in Hebrew Bible and Hebrew language.

I also teach in various adult education settings on topics including art and literature inspired by the Bible, biblical cities, Hebrew, and Latin.

Major modules

Adversaries and Allies in Ancient Israel

Students follow the literary history of foreign cities in the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament. In biblical texts, foreign cities are often portrayed as enemies. They are subject to many prophecies about their brutality to others and their violent end. The character of these cities as personified in the Bible outlived the texts in which they were born. For example, ‘Babylon’ survives into the modern day as a literary and cultural code for decadence, corruption, and imperial evil. Just as Babylon and other foreign cities were used in the Bible to shape Israelite identity in distinction from the world around it, so today we use ciphers like ‘Babylon’ to define what we are not, and therefore, who we are.

Women and Warfare in Ancient Israel

In the first part of the module, students learn about the Hebrew Bible’s portrayals of women and the feminine, including the queens of Israel and Judah, the role of women in the community, goddesses, and rhetoric about women. In the second part of the module, students learn about the relationship between military victories and righteousness, the theological implications of Israel and Judah being at war with each other, the impact of siege warfare on the Hebrew Bible, the theological implications of YHWH being a god who fights in battle, and how Judah’s greatest ever military defeat in 586BCE became the defining aspect of its theology. We use a mixture of biblical, archaeological, and ancient Near Eastern materials throughout.

Art and Literature Inspired by the Bible

In this course, students explore a range of artistic pieces inspired by biblical stories. These include paintings, sculptures, book illustrations, poetry, plays, and books—from Rembrandt to comic books, and from Dracula to Harry Potter. We look at how artists interpret the Bible stories in different ways, and how they use biblical themes and ideas to enrich their own work.

The Greatest Story, Better Told: Narrative in the Hebrew Bible

Students explore examples of narrative literature in the Bible and the elements of a literary approach to the texts. You will learn about the use of plot, characterisation, repetition and ambiguity in biblical narrative, and how biblical narrative persuasively presents its ideology (or ideologies) to its readers. You will discover how allusions, text collation and scribal editing created internal references and interdependence between various parts of ‘the’ biblical narrative. You will consider some variations of biblical narrative, namely prophetic narrative and diaspora novella, and developments in biblical narrative beyond and outside the Hebrew Bible.