Biosketch

Prof Louis Jonker

Louis C. Jonker is professor in Old Testament at the University of Stellenbosch, South Africa. As a fellow of the Alexander von Humbolt Foundation (Bonn), he has done research at the University of Tübingen on numerous occasions. In his research on Second Temple-period literature, he focuses on the relationship between history-writing and identity negotiation. He has edited various volumes on this topic and has published extensively on the biblical books of Chronicles.

Prof. Jonker, was awarded the honourable Andrew Murray-Desmond Tutu prize in May 2018. This award celebrates the best theological publication in South Africa over the past three years.

Prof. Jonker’s research focuses mainly on three interests: (i) Intercultural Bible Reading: In this research, exposure to intercultural Bible reading is used to facilitate a move from multiculturality to interculturality in the South African society. (ii) Chronicles as “Reforming history”: The hermeneutical dynamics of reinterpretation that produced the Books of Chronicles in the Late Persian province of Yehud, are explored. This research rests on an interdisciplinary basis in which insights from text-pragmatical analysis, socio-cultural studies, social psychology (on identity formation), post-colonial criticism (on power relations in an imperium) and reception-theological studies (on contemporary interpretations) are utilized. (iii) Literature formation processes in the late Persian and early Hellenistic periods: This research focuses on the interaction among (inter alia) the developing Pentateuchal material (including the Deuteronomic, priestly and holiness materials), Chronicles, Ezra-Nehemiah, the Deuteronomistic history, and prophets like Ezechiel and Haggai.