Three New Lecturers in New Testament Appointed

The School of Divinity, History and Philosophy is delighted to announce that three new appointments have been made in the field of New Testament studies. Drs. Jutta Leonhardt-Balzer and Tomas Bokedal will join the staff at Aberdeen at the outset of the coming academic year and Ms. Jane Heath will begin with the faculty in the autumn of 2008.  Biblical Studies is a long-standing area of teaching and research excellence here at Aberdeen, and these appointments will ensure that this tradition continues.

 

Dr. Leonhardt-Balzer holds a doctorate from the University of Cambridge, and comes to Aberdeen most immediately from the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität (LMU) Munich where she has been engaged in teaching and research for several years.  To date, her research has focussed in particular upon Philo of Alexandria, the Johannine writings, New Testament Parables, Hellenistic Judaism, the texts of Qumran and Gnosticism.  She is currently engaged in a comparative investigation of the description and interpretation of evil in the Qumran dualistic texts, the Johannine corpus and the Apochryphon of John. Her publications include Jewish Worship in Philo of Alexandria (Mohr Siebeck, 2001) and Fragen Esras: Übersetzung aus dem Armenischen (Gütersloher Verlagshaus, 2005).

 

 

Dr. Tomas Bokedal holds a doctorate from Lund University, and has been Lecturer at the Lutheran School of Theology in Gothenburg, Sweden. Educated in New Testament studies, theology and hermeneutics, Dr. Bokedal's primary fields of research concern Christian origins and the relation of 'Scripture and Theology.' His approach to these topics involves research into the transmission of the Gospel tradition, the technology of early Christian communication, the canon and canonical criticism, papyrology/codicology, textual and ritual theory and patristic exegesis. His work, The Scriptures and the Lord: Formation and Significance of the Christian Biblical Canon. Study in Text, Ritual and Interpretation was published by Lund University Press in 2005. Two further studies, The Forgotten Names – Nomina Sacra in the Biblical Manuscripts, and Text and Ritual in the Hermeneutics of H.-G. Gadamer – Some Implications for a Christian Theology of Scripture, wiill be published later this year.

 

Educated in classics at Oxford, Jane Heath is completing a doctoral dissertation from the University of Cambridge on the role of the visual in the theology and devotional practices of Judaism and early Christianity in relation to the text of 2 Corinthians.  Her research interests focus on religious visual piety in relation to worship, scriptural exegesis, reception history and social and intellectual exchange between Hellenism, Judaism and Christianity. Since September 2006 she has been involved in Ratio Religionis, a research project based in Göttingen investigating the relationship between religion and philosophy, especially Middle Platonism, in the Alexandrian tradition. She has recently published 'Ezekiel Tragicus and Hellenistic Visuality: The Phoenix at Elim,’ in the Journal of Theological Studies (2006) and  ‘2 Cor 4:7-12: Viewing Paul as Icon of Christ’, in R. Hirsch-Luipold Ed., Aspekte einer Literaturgeschichte der religiösen Philosophie und philosophischen Religion der Kaiserzeit (Mohr Siebeck, 2007).

 

The occasion for these new appointments is the upcoming move of Dr. Peter Williams to assume the post of Warden of Tyndale House, and of Dr. Simon Gathercole to the Faculty of Divinity at the University of Cambridge.  We wish them both the very best as they take up these new posts.