Center for Hebraic Thought Welcomes New Fellows, Awards Grants, and Inaugurates ABS Partnership

Since its launch in September 2019, the Center for Hebraic Thought (CHT) has offered resources, lectures, and events to promote literacy in biblical thought and theology. Rev. Dr. Dru Johnson, associate professor of biblical and theological studies at The King’s College, directs CHT and has worked with his team, including administrative director Abigail Smith (PPE ’20), to develop three major projects over the last eight months.

In January, CHT released its application for a course development grant program. Each grant would provide up to $4,000 for the equivalent of a three-credit university course offered in the recipient’s home institution for the 2020-21 academic year. According to the description, “This grant aims to increase the study of biblical literature as an intellectual tradition and put Christian Scripture (both the HB/OT and the NT) in conversation with various philosophies and philosophical traditions.”

This week, the CHT announced the recipients for this year’s grant: Dr. Brent Strawn (Duke University), Dr. William Kynes (Samford University), Dr. Kyle Swan (California State University, Sacramento), and Dr. Joseph Dodson (Denver Seminary). Strawn plans to use the grant for a doctoral seminar, “Theologies of the Ancient Near East,” at Duke’s Graduate Program of Religion. Kynes will offer a course at Samford University’s Biblical and Religious Studies Department titled “Wisdom in the Bible and Beyond.”

A second milestone is the addition of two new CHT fellows. The CHT already has a variety of fellows from the academic world, including Rabbi Dr. Joshua Berman (Bar-Ilan University, Israel), Dr Jeffrey P. Garcia (Nyack College), Rev. Dr. Peter Leithart (Theopolis Institute), Rev. Dr. Ryan O’Dowd (Chesterton House, Cornell University), and Dr. Shira Weiss (Ben Gurion University).

Rabbi Dr. Jeremiah Unterman and Dr. Jonathan T. Pennington are the Center’s newest additions. Unterman received his Ph.D. under the supervision of the renowned scholar Jacob Milgrom at the Judaica Program of the Near Eastern Studies Department at University of California, Berkeley and now serves as resident scholar at the Herzl Institute and the academic editor for the Koren Tanakh of the Land of Israel. Pennington received his Ph.D. in New Testament Studies from the University of St Andrews, Scotland and now serves as Associate Professor of New Testament Interpretation and Director of Research Doctoral Studies at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky.

The third major development at CHT is their recent partnership with the American Bible Society (ABS), an organization which provides Bible study resources and publishes and distributes translations of the Protestant Christian version of the Bible. CHT has hosted one workshop with ABS thus far and had planned another for April, which is now postponed due to COVID-19.

Peter Edman, director of content at American Bible Society, said, “American Bible Society is always working to serve our church partners with resources that help people engage with the life-changing message of the Bible. Working alongside the Center for Hebraic Thought is helping my team draw on the best scholarship as applied to practical pastoral concerns. We are excited to be finding robust ways to invite people to a fresh consideration of the Bible’s wisdom and equip them with the tools and confidence they need to go deeper in applying it in their spheres of influence.”

“It’s been exciting to see how enthusiastic the scholarly world has been about our project,” Johnson says, and adds that the Center’s next project is already in development. Senior fellow Robert Nicholson and Johnson are developing a video-based course with Logos Software on ‘biblical thinking.’ The course will be used as a small group curriculum for churches or expanded for a college credit course with The King’s College.