Mon. Jun 9th, 2025

Johns Hopkins HB/NWS Alumni Dissertations

For recent JHU NES alumni and their dissertations, see here.

Jason (Jay) Weimar (2024): “Before the Hajj: The haggāt Feasts at Pre-Islamic Dadan (Al-Ula) and Elsewhere in the Near East”

Description forthcoming.

Noah Crabtree (2023): “The Prophet From Anathoth: Benjamin-Judean Identity Negotiation and the Formation of the Book of Jeremiah”

Description forthcoming.

Adam Bean (2022): “Local Cults and National Gods: Divine Identity in Iron Age Levantine Religion”

Description forthcoming.

Greg Church (2021): “The Defilement of the Land in the Hebrew Bible: Exploring the Social Uses of Disgust, Law, and Ritual”

Description forthcoming.

Kathryn Medill (2020): “You Will Know Me by My Writing: The Scribes’ Choice of Goal-Marking Strategies in Biblical Hebrew in the Light of Social, Historical, and Linguistic Correlates”

Medill’s dissertation, completed in June 2020, was supervised by Alice Mandell; Theodore Lewis and Jacob Lauinger from JHU NES were also on the doctoral committee. It includes an introduction, eight chapters, and six appendices (572 pp.). The main chapters are as follows: (1) Identifying Goal Constructions; (2) Research Design and Initial Results; (3) Goal Constructions, Time, and the Makers of the Hebrew Bible; (4) Goal Constructions and Protoyptical Semantic Roles; (5) Goal Constructions and Protoyptical Motion; (6) Choosing a Directional Preposition for Goal-Marking in Biblical Hebrew Prose; (7) Differential Goal-Marking in Hebrew and Ugaritic Poetry: A First Look. Her Vita (p. 572) shows that Medill got her B.A. in Biblical Languages and Linguistics (Geneva College), M.A. in General Linguistics (Indiana University), and M.A. in Near Eastern Studies (Johns Hopkins), before completing the PhD.

David J. Rosenstein (2020): “Deuteronomy and Rhetoric: The Art of Practical Argumentation in Ancient Israel”

Description forthcoming.

Rosanne Libermann (2019): “‘Hearts of Flesh’: Collective Identity and the Body in the Book of Ezekiel”

Description forthcoming.

Erin Guinn-Villareal (2018): “Biblical Hebrew qin’â and the Maintenance of Social Integrity in Ancient Israelite Literature”

Description forthcoming.

William Reed (2018): “Yahweh’s ‘Cruel Sword’: The Manifestation of Punishment and the Trauma of Exile”

Description forthcoming.

John Tracy Thames Jr. (2016): “Ritual Revision and the Influence of Empire: The Politics of Change in the zukru Festival of Late Bronze Emar”

Description forthcoming.

Laura Wright (2016): “Glyptic Art Under and After Empire: Late Bronze IIB and Iron I Scarabs and Stamp Seals from the Southern Levant”

Description forthcoming.

Michael Simone (2015): “On Fire: Preternatural and Hypostatic Fire in Ancient Israelite Religion”

Description forthcoming.

Erin Fleming (2013): “The Politics of Sexuality in the Story of King David”

Description forthcoming.

Heather Dana Davis Parker (2013): “The Levant Comes of Age: The Ninth Century BCE through Script Traditions”

Description forthcoming.

Jaime L. Waters (2013): “Threshing Floors as Sacred Spaces in the Hebrew Bible”

Description forthcoming.

Isabel Cranz (2012): “Impurity and Ritual in the Priestly Source and Assyro-Babylonian Incantations”

Description forthcoming.

Heath Dewrell (2012): “Child Sacrifice in Ancient Israel and Its Opponents”

Description forthcoming.

Andrew Knapp (2012): “Royal Apologetic in the Ancient Near East”

Description forthcoming.

Robert Black (2005): “Patterns in Clay: A Paleographical Study of the KRT Tablets of Ugarit/Ras Shamra”

Dissertation supervised by Theodore Lewis.

Ishwaran Mudliar (2005): “A Textual Study of the Book of Malachi”

Dissertation supervised by P. Kyle McCarter; dissertation committee consisted of Theodore J. Lewis (second reader), Raymond Westbrook (third reader); Alan Shapiro (external reader and chairman of oral exam); and Demitrios Yatromanolakis (external reader). Abstract: “This dissertation is a text-critical study of the ancient Hebrew and Greek texts of Malachi. Malachi contains 55 verses which are divided into three Hebrew chapters (four chapters in English of the same number of verses). The Hebrew texts consulted are the Masoretic Text B19a (Codex Leningradensis) as printed in Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia and 4QXIIa as printed in the Discoveries in the Judean Desert series. For Greek, the Old Greek is published in Joseph Ziegler’s edition of the Twelve Prophets in the Septuaginta: Vetus Testamentum Graecum Auctoritate Societatis Litterarum Gottingensis editum. This undertaking does not concentrate on other matters such as historical background, archaeology, theology, intertextuality, grammar, syntax, and the like. These matters and interpretations are discussed only when necessary to determine the best reading. The approach taken is stemmatic, that is, the merits of each variant for a given passage are weighed according to established text critical principles. The basic principle is to isolate that reading from which the others are derived. By using this methodology, the intention is to determine the most ancient form of the text of Malachi by going verse by verse and variant by variant. There remain some doubts on the best reading of various passages in the text of Malachi. Since the publication of the Qumran text 4QXIIa, a comprehensive analysis of the variants in Malachi has yet to be made. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to offer a new evaluation of each variant between the Hebrew and Greek texts of the whole book of Malachi. In sum, it was found that when the major witnesses diverge, the MT contains the highest number of original readings. The OG appears to have a Vorlage close to the MT and 4QXIIa agrees with the MT more often than with the OG.” According to the CV (p. 219), Mudliar (b. 1966) is from Mumbai, India, and attended Union Biblical Seminary (BTh, 1992), Trinity Evangelical Divinity School (MDiv, 1998), and received both the MA (2002) and PhD (2005) at Hopkins.

Annalisa Azzoni (2001): “The Private Life of Women in Persian Egypt”

Advisors: Raymond Westbrook and P. Kyle McCarter Jr.

Tawny Holm (1996): “A Biblical Story-Collection: Daniel 1–6”

Dissertation directed by Delbert R. Hillers. Published as Of Courtiers and Kings: The Biblical Daniel Narratives and Ancient Near Eastern Story-Collections. Explorations in Ancient Near Eastern Civilizations 1. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2013.

William R. Scott (1993): “The Booths of Ancient Israel’s Autumn Festival”

Dissertation directed by Delbert R. Hillers.

Eleonora Cussini (1992): “The Aramaic Law of Sale and the Cuneiform Legal Tradition”

Dissertation directed by Delbert R. Hillers.

F. W. Dobbs-Allsopp (1992): “Weep, O Daughter of Zion: A Study of the City Lament Genre in the Hebrew Bible”

Dissertation directed by Delbert R. Hillers. Published as Weep, O Daughter of Zion: A Study of the City-Lament Genre in the Hebrew Bible. Biblica et orientalia. Rome: Pontifical Biblical Institute, 1993.

Rick R. Marrs (1982): “The šyry-hmʿlwt (Psalms 120–134): A Philological and Stylistic Analysis”

Dissertation directed by Delbert R. Hillers.

Robert Owens (1981): “The Genesis and Exodus Citations of Aphrahat the Persian Sage”

Dissertation directed by Delbert R. Hillers. Published as The Genesis and Exodus Citations of Aphrahat the Persian Sage. Monographs of the Peshitta Institute, Leiden, vol. 3. Leiden: Brill, 1983.

Suzanne Richard (1978): “The End of the Early Bronze Age in Palestine/Transjordan: A Study of the Post-EB III Cultural Complex”

Dissertation directed by Delbert R. Hillers. Some of her results published as “Toward a Consensus of Opinion on the End of the Early Bronze Age in Palestine-Transjordan,” Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 237 (1980), 5–34.

Michael Barré (1978): “The God-List in the Treaty between Hannibal and Philip
V of Macedonia”

Dissertation directed by Delbert R. Hillers. Published as The God-List in the Treaty between Hannibal and Philip V of Macedonia: A Study in Light of the Ancient Near Eastern Treaty Tradition. The Johns Hopkins University Near Eastern Studies. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1983.

James Lindenberger (1974): “The Aramaic Proverbs of Ahiqar”

Dissertation directed by Delbert R. Hillers. Published as The Aramaic Proverbs of Ahiqar. The Johns Hopkins University Near Eastern Studies. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1983.

David Burke (1974): “The Poetry of Baruch: A Reconstruction and Analysis of
the Original Hebrew Text of Baruch 3:9–5:9″

Dissertation directed by Delbert R. Hillers. Published as The Poetry of Baruch: A Reconstruction and Analysis of the Original Hebrew Text of Baruch 3:9–5:9. Society of Biblical Literature, Septuagint and Cognate Studies, No. 10. Chico, CA: Scholars Press, 1982.

David Bryan (1973): “Texts Relating to the Marzeah: A Study of an Ancient Semitic Institution”

Dissertation directed by Delbert R. Hillers.

Ivan Trujillo (1973): “The Ugaritic Ritual for a Sacrificial Meal Honoring the
Good Gods (Text CTA: 23)”

Dissertation directed by Delbert R. Hillers.

David Thompson (1973): “The Order of Adverbal Modifiers in Genesis and Proverbs: A Study in the Syntax of Hebrew Poetry”

Dissertation directed by Delbert R. Hillers.

James Rimbach (1972): “Animal Imagery in the Old Testament”

Dissertation directed by Delbert R. Hillers.

Thomas Jackson (1970): “Words in Parallelism in Old Testament Poetry”

Dissertation directed by Delbert R. Hillers.

J. K. Stark (1968): “Personal Names in Palmyrene Inscriptions”

Dissertation directed by Delbert R. Hillers. Published as Personal Names in Palmyrene Inscriptions. Oxford: Clarendon, 1971.

Simon Parker (1967): “Studies in the Grammar of Ugaritic Prose Texts”

Dissertation directed by Delbert R. Hillers.

Thomas McDaniel (1966): “Philological Studies in Lamentations”

Dissertation directed by Delbert R. Hillers. Published as “Philological Studies in Lamentations. I,” Biblica 49 (1968) 27–53; “Philological Studies in Lamentations. II,” Biblica 49 (1968) 199–220.

Francis I. Andersen (1960): “Studies in Hebrew Syntax”

Dissertation directed by William Foxwell Albright.

Edward F. Campbell Jr. (1959): TBD

Dissertation directed by William Foxwell Albright.

Joseph A. Fitzmyer, SJ (1956): “The Syntax of Imperial Aramaic Based on Documents Found in Egypt”

Dissertation advised by William Foxwell Albright. Although the dissertation remained unpublished, a part of it was used in an article, “The Syntax of kl, kl‘, ‘All’ in Aramaic Texts from Egypt and in Biblical Aramaic,” Bib 38 (1957) 170-84; reprinted, A Wandering Aramean: Collected Aramaic Essays (SBLMS 25; Missoula, MT: Scholars Press, 1979) 205-17.

Mitchell J. Dahood (1951): “Canaanite-Phoenician Influence in Qohelet”

Description forthcoming.

Victor R. Gold (1951): “Studies in the History and Culture of Edom”

Description forthcoming.

Samuel Iwry (1951): “The Damascus Document and the Dead Sea Scrolls”

Description forthcoming.

Frank Moore Cross (1950): “Studies in Ancient Yahwistic Poetry”

Description forthcoming.

Carl G. Howie (1950): “Date and Composition of Ezekiel”

Description forthcoming.

William L. Moran, SJ (1950): “A Syntactical Study of the Dialect of Byblos as Reflected in the Amarna Tablets”

Dissertation advised by William Foxwell Albright. Republished in Amarna Studies: Collected Writings (Brill: 2003).

Frank J. Neuberg (1950): “Ugaritic and the Book of Isaiah”

Description forthcoming.

David Noel Freedman (1948): “Evolution of Early Hebrew Orthography”

Description forthcoming.

Robert E. Hansen (1948), “Theophorus Son Names among the Arameans and Their Neighbors”

Description forthcoming.

John V. Walsh (1948), “Prolegomenon to Hellenizing of the Phoenician Alphabet”

Description forthcoming.

M. Kosover (1947): “Ashkenazic Jewish Community in Palestine”

Description forthcoming.

George E. Mendenhall (1947): “The Verb in Early Northwest Semitic Dialects”

Description forthcoming.

Merrill F. Unger (1947): “Israel and the Arameans of Damascus”

Description forthcoming.

Myron B. Smith (1947): “The Vault in Persian Architecture”

Description forthcoming.

Roger T. O’Callaghan (1946): “Aram Naharaim”

Description forthcoming.

Jacob M. Myers (1946): “Linguistic and Literary Forms of the Book of Ruth”

Description forthcoming.

Charles L. Feinberg (1945): “Ugaritic Literature and the Book of Job”

Description forthcoming.

John H. Patton (1944): “Canaanite Parallels in the Book of Psalms”

Description forthcoming.

John D. Zimmerman (1941): “Prophecy of Habakkuk: A Study and Critical Commentary”

Description forthcoming.

Paul Reich (1941): “Psychological Observations in the Talmud and Midrash with Parallels from the Writings of Aristotle”

Description forthcoming.

John Bright (1940): “The Age of King David: A Study in the Institutional History of Israel”

Bright received his B.A. (1928) from Presbyterian College in Clinton, South Carolina as well as B.D. (1931) and Th.M. (1933) at Union Theological Seminary in Virginia. He wrote a thesis for the latter degree on “A Psychological Study of the Major Prophets.” After two field excavations with William Foxwell Albright, Bright enrolled in the Ph.D. at Johns Hopkins in 1935 and earned his doctoral degree there in 1940. Bright subsequently taught at Union Theological Seminary and became a defining figure in American biblical scholarship, especially in the biblical theology movement which reached its peak of influence under his stewardship in the 1950s and 1960s.

Bibliography: W. P. Brown, “Bright, John (1908-1995),” in Dictionary of Major Biblical Interpreters (2007)

Alexander David Goode (1940): “The Jewish Exilarchate During the Arabic Period in Mesopotamia from 637 A.D. to 1258 A.D.”

Description forthcoming.

Abraham Joseph Sachs (1939): “Prolegomena to a Grammar of Middle Assyrian”

Description forthcoming.

G. Ernest Wright (1937): “The Pottery of Palestine from the Earliest Times to the End of the 18th c. B.C.”

Description forthcoming.

Abraham Bergman (Biran) (1935): “The Israelite Tribe of Half-Manasseh”

Description forthcoming.

Sidney Israel Esterton (1931): “The Commentary of Rabbi David Kimhi on Psalms (42-72)”

This was W. F. Albright’s first supervised dissertation at Johns Hopkins.

William Foxwell Albright (1916): “The Assyrian Deluge Epic”

Albright was admitted into the Oriental Seminary of the Johns Hopkins University in 1913 and completed his Ph.D. under Paul Haupt in 1916. His dissertation in Assyriology was never published, and Albright subsequently grew more interested in Levantine (“Biblical”) archaeology, Northwest Semitic philology, and the Hebrew Bible.

William Rosenau (1900): “Hebraisms in the Authorized Version of the Bible”

This dissertation was advised by Paul Haupt, submitted in 1900, and subsequently published by The Lord Baltimore Press in 1902. From the preface: “This investigation contains an examination of the Hebrew influence on the language of the Authorized Version. The subject was suggested to the author by Professor Paul Haupt in the autumn of 1894. Since that time the Authorized Version has been read a number of times and carefully compared with the Hebrew text. While the list of Hebraisms in the appendix is confined to the Old Testament, the New Testament contains a great number, which the author hopes to present for publication at some future time. He takes this means of expressing his thanks to his teacher, Professor Paul Haupt, for many valuable suggestions, and to Professor James W. Bright, who, during the several interviews granted by him, proved of great assistance to the author. W.R.”

Others to be continued.

Description forthcoming.