Biblical Interpretation and Method

Paul Joyce is Samuel Davidson Professor of Old Testament/Hebrew Bible at King's College London. He studied Theology at Oxford University before completing doctoral studies in Old Testament supervised by John Barton at Oxford, where he was Kennicott Hebrew Fellow. His first post was as Lecturer and subsequently Director of Studies at Ripon College, Cuddesdon, a Theological College of the Church of England. He then moved to the University of Birmingham as a Lecturer and subsequently to Oxford University, where he was University Lecturer in Old Testament and a Fellow of St Peter's College. He served as Chairman of the Oxford Theology Faculty Board 2008-2011. He has researched and written especially on the interpretation of the books of Ezekiel and Lamentations, and also their reception. He is also interested in psychological interpretation and in the theme of hospitality in biblical and cross-cultural perspective.


Katharine Dell is a Senior Lecturer in the University of Cambridge specializing in Old Testament Studies and a Fellow of St Catharine's College. She was educated at Oxford where she took her first degree in theology and then a doctorate on the book of Job supervised by John Barton. She was Lecturer in Old Testament at Ripon College Cuddesdon before moving to Cambridge in 1995. Her particular interest is in the wisdom literature of the Old Testament and she has written a number of books on Job, two on Proverbs and is currently working on the book of Ecclesiastes. She is also interested in ecological approaches to biblical texts and theological ideas about creation; and in musical interpretation. She has written both an introduction to the wisdom literature (Get Wisdom, Get Insight: An Introduction to Israel's Wisdom Literature, (DLT, 2000)) and one to the whole Old Testament (Opening the Old Testament, (Wiley Blackwell, 2008)).