Emeritus Professor David J.A. Clines

Email: d.clines@sheffield.ac.uk

David Clines read Greek and Latin at the University of Sydney and Oriental Studies (Hebrew, Aramaic and Syriac) at St John’s College, Cambridge.

He was appointed to the Department in 1964, and has spent his whole career here, teaching mostly Old Testament/Hebrew Bible courses. He was Head of Department in 1994–2001, and a Publisher and Director of Sheffield Academic Press from 1976 to 2001.

He was President of the Society for Old Testament Study in 1996, and President of the Society of Biblical Literature in 2009. In 2001 he was awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of Amsterdam. In 2003 he was presented with a Festschrift entitled Reading from Right to Left: Essays on the Hebrew Bible in Honour of David J.A. Clines (ed. J. Cheryl Exum and H.G.M. Williamson).

Research interests

• The detection and exposure of ideology in the Bible. His forthcoming book, Play the Man! Biblical Imperatives to Masculinity is an example of this interest.
• Hebrew lexicography. He is currently involved with a revision of Volume 1 (Aleph) of  The Dictionary of Classical Hebrew.

Selected publications

• The Theme of the Pentateuch (1978).
• What Does Eve Do to Help? (1990).
• Interested Parties: The Ideology of Writers and Readers of the Old Testament (1995).
• On the Way to the Postmodern: Old Testament Essays, 1967–1998, 2 vols. (1998).
• Job, 3 vols. (Word Biblical Commentary, 1989–2011).
• The Dictionary of Classical Hebrew, 8 vols. (1993–2011) and The Concise Dictionary of Classical Hebrew (2009).

Other professional activities

• Publisher and Director of Sheffield Phoenix Press since 2003, editor of The Text of the Hebrew Bible, co-editor of Hebrew Bible Monographs
• Editorial Boards of Journal for the Study of the Old Testament, Jian Dao (Hong Kong), International Sino-Christian Studies (Taiwan) and Biblical Literature Studies (Kaifeng, China)