Research Interests

I am a scholar of the literature, religions, and history of the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament and the Second Temple period. I am particularly interested in how narratives (like the books of Esther and Genesis) and poetry (like the Song of Songs and the book of Job) were interpreted—and how they continue to articulate the major human questions and provide for existential reflection.

I have published on the concept of “exile” and “migration” in the ancient world. My first book, Enduring Exile, charts the transformation of exile from a historically bound and geographically constrained concept into a symbol for physical, mental, and spiritual distress. I continue to publish on the concept of exile and diaspora, particularly in the prophetic books as well as biblical narratives (and am co-editing an Oxford Handbook on the topic with Mark Hamilton).

I am currently working on a book on the Song of Songs (Kohlhammer), an extended love poem in the Hebrew Bible. And, on the side, have been working a public-facing book based on my UVA course on the biblical book of Job and its interpretation.

I work more broadly in Global Humanities. I wrote and read a Great Courses/Audible short course called, Writing the Bible. I co-directed the Religion, Race, & Democracy Lab, which, with an interdisciplinary cohort of faculty and students, supported teaching, facilitated research, and produced stories in many forms on religion, race, and democracy from around the globe (2018–2024). Our podcast, Sacred & Profane, recipient of an NEH Media Projects grant, is ongoing and is available on our website and on iTunes. I developed and directed the Jefferson Global Seminars (2013–2018), a joint venture between the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology and UVA, and directed UVA’s program for advanced undergraduates, the Pavilion Seminars (2015–2020).

I serve on the Editorial Boards of the Journal of Biblical Literature, Hebrew Studies, and am the Hebrew Bible editor for the Society of Biblical Literature’s non-sectarian public education website, Bible Odyssey (for which I have written a number of pieces).

Teaching

• Introduction to the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament
• The Book of Job & Its Traditions
• The Song of Songs
• The Book of Genesis & Its Interpretation

 Books

• The Song of Songs, International Exegetical Commentary on the Old Testament. Stuttgart: Kohlhammer (forthcoming).
• Editing with Mark Hamilton, The Oxford Handbook on Biblical Exile and Forced Migration. New York: Oxford (forthcoming, 2025).
• Edited with Katherine Southwood, Women and Exilic Identity in the Hebrew Bible. T & T Clark, 2018 (Paperback 2019).
• Enduring Exile: The Metaphorization of Exile in the Hebrew Bible. Supplements to Vetus Testamentum 141. Leiden: Brill, 2011.

Public Scholarship

• Writing the Bible (Audible/Great Courses, 2021).

Recent Articles & Essays

• “Flora and Fauna in the Metaphorical Landscapes of the Song of Songs,” Crossing Borders between the Domestic and the Wild: Space, Flora, and Fauna (Mark Boda and Dalit Rom-Shiloni, eds.; DNI Bible Supplements; Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2024), 43–55.“The Exiles of Empires in Prophetic Images of Restoration (and Micah 4:8–5:1 [Eng 5:2])” in In the Shadow of Empire: Israel and Judah in the Long Sixth Century BCE (Pamela Barmash and Mark Hamilton, eds.; Archaeology and Biblical Studies; Atlanta: SBL Press, 2021), 97–113.
• “Introduction to the Song of Songs” [as well as revising the explanatory notes], The Society of Biblical Literature Study Bible: New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition (HarperOne, 2023), 930–933.“Prophetic Images of Women as Metaphors for Exile: Jeremiah’s Book of Consolation,” in Images of Exile in the Prophetic Literature: Copenhagen Conference Proceedings 7–10 May 2017 (Jesper Høgenhaven, Frederik Poulsen and Cian Power, eds.; FAT II 103; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2019).
• “Exile and Dislocation.” In The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Bible and Theology, edited by Samuel E. Balentine. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015.
• “Displacement and Diaspora in Biblical Narrative.” In The Oxford Handbook to Biblical Narrative, edited by Danna Nolan Fewell. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015.
• “Secrets and Lies: Secrecy Notices (Esth 2:10, 20) and Diasporic Identity in the Books of Esther.” Journal of Biblical Literature 131 (Fall 2012): 467–485.
• “There is No One!: The Redaction of Exile in Jeremiah’s Book of Consolation (31:15–22).” In By the Irrigation Canals of Babylon: Approaches to the Study of the Exile, edited by John Ahn and Jill Middlemas, 107–122. New York, NY: T & T Clark, 2012.
• “The Strange Case of the Disappearing Woman: Biblical Resonances in Kafka’s Fräulein Bürstner.” In From the Margins: Women of the Hebrew Bible and Their Afterlives, edited by Peter Hawkins and Lesleigh Cushing Stahlberg, 159–73. Sheffield: Phoenix, 2009.