Thursday, August 09, 2007

YDS Hires New Asst. Prof. of OT

Yale Divinity School has a new faculty member in OT, a young Jewish scholar trained at Harvard named Joel Baden. Their official news release reads as follows:

Joel Baden, YDS faculty

...Baden, a specialist in the Pentateuch and Biblical Hebrew, joins the YDS faculty in 2007-08 as assistant professor of Old Testament. He is particularly interested in the issue of Pentateuchal and Deuteronomistic composition and redaction.


Baden has presented papers on source criticism and other methods of reading the biblical text, as well as the nature of the priestly strand of the Torah. Current projects include a study of the combination of the J and E strands in the Pentateuch and a series of articles on the syntax of volitive sequences in Biblical Hebrew. Future projects include a number of articles on detailed source-critical treatments of various passages in the Pentateuch, a handbook on the methodology of source criticism, and a study of the differing redactional techniques in the Pentateuch and the Deuteronomistic History.


Baden, the only Jewish member of the regular faculty, holds a B.A. from Yale University, and M.A. from the University of Chicago, and a Ph.D. from Harvard.

3 Comments:

Blogger Eliz F said...

Sounds like he has a different approach to scripture than Brevard Childs.

Fri Aug 10, 08:33:00 AM GMT-5  
Blogger S and C said...

Good observation; yes, YDS has gone in a different direction now than when I was there. For example, see my blog post here. But institutions change, and we have to accept it; and it does look this scholar is extremely qualified academically. Best, ---S.

Fri Aug 10, 10:14:00 AM GMT-5  
Blogger John Quant said...

As a recent (2007) graduate of YDS, I agree with your assesment. I happened to be at Baden's lecture when he was candidating, and he is undoubtable the most polished of the candidates and incredibly bright. On the flip side, your critique of Collins' work in the above link could be well applied to Baden (incredibly insightful in terms of historical criticism, but not theologically relevant to any religious community).

Mon Sep 17, 11:08:00 PM GMT-5  

Post a Comment

<< Home