For Scholars

There has been a growing cadre of biblical scholars, theologians, and philosophers—Jewish, Christian, atheist, and other— developing scholarship around the question: Is the Bible philosophical, or even, philosophy? Below are some resources, but note that these come from all theological (and not) perspectives. Feel free to contact us with suggested resources to add.

On the Web

• Dru Johnson
  • “Biblically-Sensitive Philosophy” A web symposium with responses from Oliver Crisp, Kevin Vanhoozer, Joshua Blander, and J. T. Turner.
• Yoram Hazony
  • “An Imperfect God?” New York Times (Nov. 25, 2012).
  • “An Individualist Approach to the Hebrew Bible,” NPR interview on All Things Considered.

Books & Articles

• Craig Bartholomew, Where Mortals Dwell (Baker, 2011).
• Joshua Berman
  • Created Equal (Oxford University Press, 2009).
  • Inconsistencies in the Torah (Oxford University Press, 2018).
• Thorleif Boman, Hebrew Thought Compared With Greek (Norton, 1960).
• Michael Carasik, Theologies of the Mind in Biblical Israel (Peter Lang, 2006).
• James Diamond, Jewish Theology Unbound (Oxford University Press, 2018).
• Jaco Gericke,
  • The Hebrew Bible and Philosophy of Religion (SBL Press, 2012).
  • “Is There Philosophy in the Hebrew Bible? Some Recent Affirmative Perspectives,”  Journal for Semitics 23/2 (Jan 2014): 583 – 598.
• Lenn Goodman, God of Abraham (New York: Oxford, 1996).
• Moshe Halbertal and Stephen Holmes, The Beginning of Politics: Power in the Biblical Book of Samuel (Princeton University Press, 2017)
• Yoram Hazony
  • Philosophy of Hebrew Scripture (Cambridge University Press, 2012).
  • God and the Politics of Esther (Cambridge University Press, 2015).
• Dru Johnson
  • Biblical Philosophy: An Hebraic Approach to the Old and New Testaments (Cambridge University Press, forthcoming).
  • Biblical Knowing (Cascade, 2013).
  • Knowledge by Ritual (Eisenbrauns, Penn State Press, 2016).
  • Epistemology and Biblical Theology (Routledge, 2017).
  • The Question of God’s Perfection, edited with Yoram Hazony (Brill, 2018).
• Ryan O’Dowd, The Wisdom of Torah (V&R, 2009).
• Eleonore Stump, Wandering in Darkness (New York: Oxford, 2010).
• Jeremiah Unterman, Justice for All (JPS/University of Nebraska Press, 2016).
• Shira Weiss, Ethical Ambiguity in the Hebrew Bible (Cambridge University Press, 2018).

Symposia, Institutes, and Workshops

• Wrestling with Life: Analytic Theology and Biblical Narratives Workshop (Godehard Brüntrup, Moshe Halbertal, David Shatz, and Eleonore Stump, hosted at Tantur in Jerusalem)
• Think2: Second-Order Thinking in the Ancient Fertile Crescent (Jan Assman, Jan Dietrich, Jaco Gericke, and Marc Van De Mieroop, hosted at Aarhus University, Denmark)
• Philosophical Investigation of Hebrew Scriptures, Talmud, and Midrash conference series (Yoram Hazony, Dru Johnson, Joshua Weinstein, hosted by the Herzl Institute in Jerusalem)
• Philosophy and Hebrew Bible program unit (Jaco Gericke and Dru Johnson, Society of Biblical Literature annual meetings, 2014–16)
• Logos Institute for Analytical and Exegetical Theology (Alan Torrance, Andrew Torrance, and N. T. Wright)