Katharine Dell profile

Teaching Officers | Senior Lecturer, Old Testament

Profile

Senior Lecturer, Old Testament Studies in the Faculty of Divinity and Fellow, Tutor and Director of Studies in Theology and Religious Studies at St Catharine's College, Cambridge.

Member of the organizing panel of the SBL’s Wisdom in Israel and Cognate Traditions; member of SOTS committee.

Research interests

Proverbs, Job Ecclesiastes, wisdom literature, creation, ecological readings of texts, musical interpretation of biblical texts. I am currently working on an Old Testament Guide on Job for the new SOTS series and a monograph on Ecclesiastes.

If there are any potential post-graduate students who may be interested in working with me towards a PhD in any of these areas please do not hesitate to get in touch.

Publications

BOOKS:

The Book of Job as Sceptical Literature , BZAW 197, Berlin & New York: Walter de Gruyter, 1991.

Values, Conflict and the Environment, (joint editor with R. Attfield), Oxford: Ian Ramsey Centre, 1989; Second edition Aldershot: Avebury Press; Brookfield VT: Ashgate, 1996.

Shaking a Fist at God: Understanding Suffering through the Book of Job, London: Harper Collins, 1995; Ligouri, Missouri: Triumph Books, 1996.

Get Wisdom, Get Insight: An Introduction to Israel’s Wisdom Literature , London: Darton, Longman and Todd, 2000.

Job , The People’s Bible Commentary, Oxford: Bible Reading Fellowship, 2002.

Seeking a Life that Matters: Wisdom for Today from the Book of Proverbs , London: Darton, Longman and Todd, 2002.

Wisdom: The Collected Articles of Norman Whybray , eds. K. J. Dell and M. Barker, SOTS Monograph Series, Aldershot: Ashgate, 2005.

The Book of Proverbs in Social and Theological Context , Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006.

Opening the Old Testament , Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2008.

Genesis, Isaiah and Psalms: A Festschrift to honour John Emerton for his eightieth birthday, eds. K J Dell, G I Davies and Y V Koh, Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2010.

MAIN ARTICLES:

‘Ecclesiastes as Wisdom: Consulting Early Interpreters’, Vetus Testamentum XLIV, No 3, July 1994, pp 301-32.

‘Green Ideas in the Wisdom Tradition’, SJT 47/4 (1994), pp 423-451.

‘The misuse of forms in Amos’, Vetus Tetamentum XLV, No 1, January 1995, pp 45-61.

“Reinventing the wheel: the shaping of the book of Jonah”, After the Exile: Essays on iblical History and Interpretation in Honour of Rex Mason, eds. J. Barton and D Rymer (Mercer University Press/Kok/Pharos, Kampen), 1996, pp. 85-101.

“On the development of wisdom in Israel”, Congress Volume: Cambridge 1995, ed. J. A. Emerton, Leiden: Brill, 1997, pp. 135-151.

“The King in the Wisdom Literature”, King and Messiah in Israel and the ancient Near East, ed. J. Day, JSOTS 270, Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1998, pp. 163-186.

“Wisdom in Israel”, Text in Context, ed. A.D.H. Mayes, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000, pp. 348-375.

“The Use of Animal Imagery in the Psalms and Wisdom Literature of Ancient Israel”, Scottish Journal of Theology 53/3 (2000), pp. 275-291.

“Plumbing the Depths of Earth: Job 28 and Deep Ecology”, The Earth Story in Wisdom Traditions, The Earth Bible, Volume 3, eds. N. C. Habel and S. Wurst, Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2001, pp. 116-125.

“Wisdom Literature”, The Blackwell Companion to the Hebrew Bible, ed. L. G. Perdue, Oxford: Blackwell, 2001, pp 418-431.

“Wisdom”, The Biblical World, ed. J. Barton, London and New York: Routledge, 2002, pp. 107-128.

“Covenant and Creation in relationship”, Covenant as Context: Essays in Honour of E. W. Nicholson, eds. A.D.H. Mayes and R.B. Salters, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003, pp. 111-133.

“Job”, Eerdmans Commentary on the Bible, eds. J. Rogerson and B. Metzger, Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 2004, pp. 337-363.

“How much Wisdom Literature has its Roots in the Pre-exilic period?”, In Search of Pre-Exilic Israel, ed. J. Day, London and New York: T & T Clark International, 2004, pp. 251-271.

“’I will solve my riddle to the music of the lyre’ (Psalm XLIX 4 [5]): A cultic setting for wisdom psalms?”, Vetus Testamentum LIV/4 (2004), pp. 445-458.

“Does the Song of Songs have any connections to wisdom?”, Perspectives on the Song of Songs, ed. A. C. Hagedorn, BZAW 346, Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2005, pp. 8-26.

“Wisdom”, Oxford Handbook of Biblical Studies, eds. J. W. Rogerson and J. M. Lieu, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006, pp. 409-419.

‘God. Creation and the contribution of wisdom,’ The God of Israel, ed. R P Gordon, Cambridge: CUP, 2007, pp 60-72.

‘Job: Sceptics, Philosophers and Tragedians’, Das Buch hiob und seine Interpretationen: Beiträge zum Hiob-Symposium auf dem Monte Verita vom 14-19 August, 2005, AThANT 88, Zurich: Theologischer Verlag, 2007, pp 1-19.

‘Reviewing Recent Research on the Wisdom Literature‘, Expository Times 119/6 (2008) pp. 261-269.

“Recent Books in Old Testament Studies”, Reviews in Religion and Theology, (1997) Vol. 2, pp. 76-80.

‘Scribes, Sages and Seers in the First Temple’, Scribes, Sages and Seers: The Sage in the Eastern Mediterranean World, ed. L. G. Perdue, FRLANT 209, Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2008, pp 125-144.

‘The Cycle of Life in Ecclesiastes’, Vetus Testamentum 59 (2009), pp 181-189.

‘Job’ in Theological Bible Commentary, eds. Gail R. O’Day and David L. Petersen, Louisville KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009, pp. 167-176.

‘Proverbs 1-9: Issues of social and theological context’, Interpretation, 63/3 (2009), pp 229-240. ‘Proverbs’ in The New Oxford Annotated Bible ( 4 th Edition), M. D. Coogan (ed.), Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010, pp 895-934.

‘The suffering servant: Jeremiah revisited’, Genesis, Isaiah and Psalms: A Festschrift to honour John Emerton for his eightieth birthday, eds. K J Dell, G I Davies and Y V Koh, Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2010, pp 119-134.

‘Solomon’s wisdom and the Egyptian connection’ for The Centre and the Periphery: Festschrift for W. Brueggemann, ed D. Clines and J. Middlemas, Sheffield: Phoenix Press, 2010, pp 21-36.

‘The Significance of the Wisdom Tradition in the Ecological Debate’ in Ecological Hermeneutics: Biblical, Historical and Theological Perspectives eds. D. Horrell, C Hunt, C Southgate & F. Stavrokopoulou, London : T & T Clark International, 2010, pp. 56-69.

‘Old Testament theology in ecological focus’ for Wisdom and Creation: Festschrift for J A Loader, 2010, pp 1-17.

IN PRESS

‘Ecclesiastes’ for New Interpreters’ Bible, One Volume Commentary (NIBOVC)

‘Psalms’ for Oxford Handbook to the Reception History of the Bible.

‘Wisdom in the Old Testament’ for the New Interpreters’ Dictionary of the Bible.

‘Proverbs’ for Oxford Encyclopaedia of the Bible.

‘Amos and the earthquake: judgement as natural disaster’ for Aspects of Amos, ed. A. Hagedorn, LHBOT, 2010.

‘Does God behave unethically in the book of Job?’ for Ethical and Unethical volume, ed. K J Dell, LHBOT, 2010.

‘Hosea, creation and wisdom: an alternative tradition’ for On stone and scroll, Festschrift for Graham Davies, eds. J K Aitken, K J Dell, and B A Mastin, Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2011.

‘Incongruity in I Samuel 9-15: a methodological survey’ for Festschrift for Robert Gordon, eds G. Khan and D. Lipton, Brill, 2011.

‘Interpretation of Proverbs in the nineteenth century’ for HBOT, ed. M. Saebo.