Graduate Students



Biblical and Levantine Studies Graduate Students Hebrew Bible and Northwest Semitic Languages Robert Cargill joined UCLA in 2001 as a doctoral student studying Hebrew Bible and Second Temple Judaism under Dr. William Schniedewind. His experience in Semitic languages, archaeology, and software technologies led him to the Qumran Visualization Project, which serves as a component of his doctoral dissertation. He spent four years teaching courses in religion at Pepperdine University, and has been excavating in Israel since 1999 at Banias, Omrit, and Hazor. Matthew Suriano is currently writing a dissertation on death-rituals and the royal epilogue formulae found in the book of Kings. His research into death-rituals, however, is not limited to the Hebrew Bible but extends into questions of death and early forms of eschatology in Second Temple period Judaism. Other research interests include the Deuteronomistic History, the book of Job, inter-biblical exegesis, the archaeology and historical-geography of the Levant and Northwest Semitic inscriptions. His work in Northwest Semitics (including epigraphic Hebrew) has been published in the Palestine Exploration Quarterly and the Journal of Near Eastern Studies. Matthew has much experience in the Middle East and has participated in excavations and surveys in Israel, including work at Tel Rehov, Tel Dor, Ketef Hinnom and Ramat Rahel. Most recently he was the George A. Barton Fellow at the Albright Institute of Archaeological Research in Jerusalem as part of his doctoral studies. Abraham Josiah Chappell is interested in topics related to biblical studies extending from the Ancient Near Eastern context of the text up through early Christianity and Rabbinic Judaism. His dissertation will likely focus on Second Temple literature, perhaps something apocalyptic and/or pseudepigraphical. Moise Issac is interested in Hebrew Bible and Northwest Semitic Languages (Hebrew Bible, Dead Sea Scrolls, Aramaic, Ugaritic and Northwest Semitic Languages, History of Israel, and Linguistic Anthropology). Peter Lanfer Roger Nam interested in questions of production, consumption and exchange. These issues drive his present research on the economic structures of the society that produced the Hebrew Bible. His other interests include Deuteronomistic Literature, the eighth century Prophets, Assyriology, Levantine Archaeology, and Biblical Traditions in the Late Second Temple. His in-progress dissertation is entitled “Go Sell Your Oil and Pay Your Debt!”: Portrayals of Exchange in the Book of Kings. Jennifer Metten Pantoja is interested in the liturgical literature of the psalms and their social function in the post-exilic tradition. She is especially interested in researching how the psalms were used in the daily life of individuals in the Second Temple period. The community at Qumran also accumulated their own psalter and she is presently researching how these particular psalms were used in the sectarian community. Her other interests include Midrash, Pseudepigrapha, Northwest Semitics, and Aramaic Grace Park Ryan Roberts’ interests lie in Northwest Semitic languages and literature, and the Late Bronze and Iron Age periods, specifically, the early history of Israel from their emergence in Canaan through the monarchy. His research seeks to integrate textual sources with archaeological evidence. He is also interested in the biblical and “parabiblical” Dead Sea Scroll texts and how they inform our understanding of the textual transmission of the Hebrew Bible. Matthew Suriano Levantine Archaeology Kyle Keimer’s interests include the archaeology of ancient Israel and the Levant with a specific focus on the Iron Age southern Levant. His topic of interest is warfare in the ancient Near East and how it influences or is influenced by social organization, economic settings, and political organization. He is also interested in historical geography, largely of the southern Levant, and both Levantine-Mesopotamian and Levantine-Cypriot relations in the Iron II and LB, respectively. His dissertation research will focus on fortification networks of the Iron Age southern Levant George Pierce Jewish Studies Ariella Radwin is a graduate student in Late Antique Judaism with a primary interest in Midrash and Talmud. She received a bachelors degree in philosophy from Stanford University (1997) and a Master of Arts in Rabbinic Studies from the University of Judaism (2002). Her dissertation considers the metaphoric marriage between God and Israel as a paradigm for understanding the case of a suspected adulteress. She is projected to complete her dissertation, entitled “Adultery and the Marriage Metaphor: Rabbinic Readings of Sotah” in 2007. She lives in Palo Alto, and is an adjunct lecturer in the Jewish Studies program at San Francisco State University. Recent Graduates Jeremy Smoak (‘07), Post-Doctoral Fellow, UCLA 2007–2008 Robert Duke (‘06), Asst. Prof., Department of Biblical Studies, Azusa Pacific University Russell Arnold (‘05), Asst. Prof., DePauw University Fred Mabie (‘04), Assoc. Prof. of Associate Professor of Bible Exposition Talbot Theological Seminary Back to “Biblical and Levantine Studies” Homepage