Jacob L. Wright

Dr. Jacob L. Wright is a professor of Hebrew Bible / Old Testament at Emory University, which boasts one of the world's leading doctoral programs in biblical studies. Before coming to Emory, he taught at the University of Heidelberg in Germany.

As an American with a European education, he is widely known for his ability to blend a wide range of historical, religious, and geographical perspectives on the Bible. His writing and teaching are thoroughly interdisciplinary, demonstrating how the ideas of the Bible and other ancient writings bear directly on central problems that face our societies in modern times. He brings to his work first-hand acquaintance with archeological finds and primary sources from ancient Mesopotamia, Egypt, and Greece. As a testimony to his distinctive interdisciplinary approach to biblical studies, he recently received a full Faculty Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Humanities, which had not been awarded in biblical studies for many years prior.

Wright writes on an array of topics, ranging from social life in ancient Israel (feasting, war commemoration, urbicide, etc.) to the formation of biblical writings. His first book, Rebuilding Identity: The Nehemiah Memoir and Its Earliest Readers (De Gruyter), won the prestigious Templeton Award for first books in religion. His current research treats a wide range of phenomena related to war and society in ancient Israel.

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