Research

Research interests

The Centre provides a forum for a wide range of research related to Biblical Studies. This research includes philological and historical studies and work on the contemporary interpretation, reception and impact of biblical texts.

Particular foci for recent research include interdisciplinary research on identity, territoriality and bodies (living and dead); the nature and role of religious belief and practice (especially through magic); and study of the reception of biblical texts among non-literate contemporary communities, in Jewish post-holocaust readings, and in contemporary environmental ethics. It also includes philological work on Jewish, Christian and Islamic artefacts from the early Christian and Islamic periods. Research students are currently working on a range of projects in these areas.

See our individual staff entries for details of staff members' research interests and individual projects.

Current research projects

Listed below are the Centre's current research projects.

• Disability and Embodiment in Namibia: Contextual Bible Studies
• Pre-Islamic Incantation Bowls from Mesopotamia
• Ethnicity, Race, and Religion in Early Christian and Jewish Identities
• Bible and Bedlam: Madness and Sanism in New Testament Interpretation
• Dissecting Yahweh: The Materiality of the Divine Body and Its Biblical Autopsy
• The Bible and the Devotional Life

Past projects

• Beyond Stewardship? Biblical Texts and Environmental Ethics
• Uses of the Bible in Environmental Ethics
• Texts of Land, Sea and Hope
• The Roles of Ancestor Veneration in Biblical Land Claims
• Sense and Stigma: Refiguring Sensory Impaired Characters in the Gospels
• The Social Life of the Corpse in the Ancient World
• The Use of the Bible in Church Congregations

Further detail on research grants and projects in Theology and Religion are available on the discipline research homepage.