About me

Personal Statement

I fell in love with the literature and ideas of the Hebrew Bible as an undergraduate and I continue to be fascinated by these texts in my work as a teacher and scholar of the Hebrew Bible. As a scholar of the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament), I see myself first and foremost as a reader of texts. To me, being a reader includes reflecting actively on what we do when we read, what informs our reading, and how people have read throughout history. Within academic studies of the Hebrew Bible, I specialize  women and gender studies, metaphor theory, the book of Isaiah, narrative readings of biblical texts,  questions  concerning death and death wishes, and more recently reception history of the bible. 

My first book, Silent or Salient Gender? The Interpretation of Gendered God-Language in the Hebrew Bible, Exemplified in Isaiah 42, 46 and 49 (Mohr Siebeck, 2008), received the John Templeton Award for Theological Promise in 2008. This book contributes to the study of gender and metaphor in biblical research. The point of departure for this work was the renewed interest in the feminine side of God in religious life, feminist activism, and academia from the 1970s onwards. Although scholarship at the time documented the occurrence of feminine language for God in the Hebrew Bible, it still could not challenge the predominantly male image of God.  Drawing on contemporary metaphor theory, my book took the debate a step further. I asked not only whether gendered god-language is used in the Hebrew Bible but whether the gender of the god-language is of significance when it occurs. One review summarized the answer as follows: “The principal contribution of the book is its persuasive case that gender is not a silent player in metaphorical language for God, but that it is significant for these metaphors’ operation and effect.” (Elaine James, Journal of Hebrew Scriptures 9 [2009])

My second book  The Death Wish in the Hebrew Bible: Rhetorical Strategies for Survival (Cambridge University Presse, 2021) is the first monograph to systematically investigate the many texts in the Hebrew Bible in which a literary character expresses a wish to die. Scholars have previously assumed that this motif represents a passive desire to escape suffering. In this book I employ narrative theory and conversation analysis to challenge this interpretation. I ask: what triggers each death wish and how do the death wishes function in their literary contexts? In this book I  demonstrate how death wishes, once viewed as speech utterances, serve several powerful rhetorical strategies: as part of a negotiation strategy exemplified in the case of Rachel and Moses, as wishful thinking from the people in the desert and in David’s mourning, and as a genuine longing for death as in the case of Elijah and Jonah. For Jeremiah and Job the death wish is a wish to eradicate one’s whole existence. Expressing a death wish can be a wish for death or a fight for survival. 

My current research project, The Bible and the Dystopian World, opens a dialogue between dystopian literature and biblical texts. While working on the Rachel and Leah narrative for my second book, I was also reading Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale. I was struck, not only by Atwood’s literary use of Genesis, but how her reading affected how I in turn read the biblical text. This process is often referred to as “reversing the hermeneutical flow.” Atwood continues her engagement with the Bible in The Testaments, where the Bible is referred to as the “most forbidden of books” (302). Essentially none of the extensive scholarship on dystopian literature has been informed by specialists in the literature of antiquity. In this research I will engage also with the work of Octavia E. Butler, Giovanna and Tom Fletcher, and others. 

I have held my position  in the Department of Classical and Near Eastern Religions and Cultures at the University of Minnesota since August 2013. I am also a member of the Center of Jewish Studies and Religious Studies at U of MN and affiliated faculty in the Department of Gender, Women, and Sexuality Studies at the U of MN. Previously I was an associate professor of Old Testament Studies at the MF Norwegian School of Theology, Religion, and Society in Oslo (Norway) from 2007–2013, where I also received my doctoral degree.

I have  been a visiting scholar in the Bible Department at Hebrew University in Jerusalem, at Stellenbosch University (South Africa), Duke University, and Luther Theological Seminary in St Paul. As a student I spent time at the University of Göttingen (Germany), Hebrew University (Jerusalem), and the University of Chicago. These experiences of studying, teaching, and doing research in many different contexts, both geographically and academically has, I believe, enriched my own perspectives on how to read the Bible.