About
I am Assistant Professor of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations at Harvard University, specializing in the Hebrew Bible and the history and culture of ancient Israel. I am particularly interested in the ritual texts of the Hebrew Bible and the history of the Israelite cult. In my research, I combine detailed philological analysis and the methods of historical criticism with the use of anthropological and social theories to illuminate the biblical text, including ritual theory, memory studies, postcolonial theory, and discourse analysis. Education
PhD | University of Lausanne | Hebrew Bible
BTheol Hons | University of Divinity, Australia | Biblical Studies
BA | University of Melbourne | Anthropology and Critical Theory Work Shared in CORE
Articles
- “The Tent of Meeting as Monumental Space: The Construction of the Priestly Sanctuary in Exodus 25–31, 35–40.” Hebrew Bible and Ancient Israel 10, no. 3 (2021): 301–13.
- “Festivals and Violence in 1 and 2 Maccabees: Hanukkah and Nicanor’s Day,” Hebrew Bible and Ancient Israel, 10, no. 1 (2021): 63–76.
- “ ‘The Temple which You Will Build For Me in the Land’: The Future Sanctuary in a Textual Tradition of Leviticus,” Dead Sea Discoveries 24, no. 2 (2017): 271–300
- “Sabbath and Sanctuary Cult in the Holiness Legislation: A Reassessment.” Journal of Biblical Literature 138, no. 4 (2019): 723–42.
- “The Prohibition of Local Butchery in Leviticus 17:3–4: The Evidence from the Dead Sea Scrolls,” in La Bible hébraïque et les manuscrits de la mer Morte. Études en l’honneur de George Brooke, eds. Christophe Nihan and Julia Rhyder, Semitica 62 (2020): 307–27.
Book chapters
- “The Reception of Ritual Laws in the Early Second Temple Period: The Evidence of Ezra-Nehemiah and Chronicles.” Pp. 255–79 in Text and Ritual in the Pentateuch. Edited by C. Nihan and J. Rhyder. University Park: Eisenbrauns, 2021.
- “Unity and Hierarchy: North and South in the Priestly Traditions.” Pages 109–34 in Yahwistic Diversity and the Hebrew Bible. Edited by B. Hensel, D. Nocquet and B. Adamczewski. FAT 2/120. Tübingen. Mohr Siebeck, 2020.
- Christophe Nihan and Julia Rhyder, “Aaron’s Vestments in Exodus 28 and Priestly Leadership.” Pages 45–67 in Debating Authority: Concepts of Leadership in the Pentateuch and the Former Prophets. Edited by Katharina Pyschny and Sarah Schulz. BZAW 507. Berlin/Boston, MA: de Gruyter, 2018.
- “Space and Memory in the Book of Leviticus,” Pages 83-96 in Scripture as Social Discourse: Social-Scientific Perspectives on Early Jewish and Christian Writings, ed. T. Klutz, C. Strine and J. M. Keady. London: T&T Clark, 2018
Online publication
Memberships
ASOR
EABS
Society of Biblical Literature