Julia O'Brien

Julia M. O'Brien is Paul H. and Grace L. Stern Professor of Old Testament at Lancaster Theological Seminary, where she has taught since 1997.

Dr. O'Brien received her B.A. in religion from Wake Forest University in 1981. She earned her M.Div from Duke Divinity School in 1984, and her Ph.D. in Hebrew Bible from Duke University in 1988, where her areas of study included the history and archeology of the Old Testament, as well as Judaism and Literary Criticism.

Her academic specialties include the prophetic literature of the Hebrew Bible (especially the Minor Prophets), and the intersection of gender studies and biblical studies.

She currently serves as Editor-in-Chief of the Oxford Encyclopedia of the Bible and Gender Studies and is completing a feminist commentary on the book of Micah. Previous publications include Nahum (Sheffield Academic Press, 2001); Nahum through Malachi (Abingdon Old Testament Commentary series, 2004); and Challenging Prophetic Metaphor (Westminster John Knox, 2008).  With Chris Franke, she co-edited Aesthetics of Violence in the Prophets (T & T Clark, 2010).

Professor O'Brien lectures and leads workshops on various topics related to the Bible and contemporary culture–including (homo)sexuality and the Bible; the family in ancient and modern perspectives; biblical promises and Middle Eastern politics; and secular readings of Old Testament narratives.

Prophets
Gender Studies
Ethical Issues in Reading the Hebrew Bible:
Violence and Constructions of Families
Literary approaches to the Bible

 

Challenging Prophetic Metaphor: Theology and Ideology in the ProphetsWestminster John Knox, 2008.

“Nahum-Habakkuk-Zephaniah: Reading the ‘Former Prophets’ in the Persian Period.” Interpretation 61 (2007): 168-183.

Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi Abingdon Old Testament Commentaries(Abingdon Press, 2004)

Nahum Readings: A New Biblical Commentary (Sheffield Academic Press, 2002)

“On Saying `No’ to a Prophet.” Semeia 72 (1997): 111-124. Reprinted in Prophets and Daniel. A Feminist Companion tothe Bible (second series), ed. Athalya Brenner. Sheffield Academic Press,2001.

“Judah as Wife and Husband: Deconstructing Gender in Malachi.” Journal of Biblical Literature 115 (1996): 243-252.

Priest and Levite in Malachi
Society of Biblical Literature Dissertation Series, no. 121 (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1990)

Interpreting the Books of the Old Testament(especially the prophetic materials)
Gender in the Bible and in Biblical Interpretation
Ways of Reading the Bible
The Bible as Literature
The Bible and the Family

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