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Religious Studies Department

At the crossroads of theological formation, service, and scholarship

Brian Doak

Photo of Brian Doak Brian R. Doak
Assistant Professor of Biblical Studies

Phone: (503) 554.2655
E-mail: bdoak@georgefox.edu 

Ph.D. Harvard University
M.A. Missouri State University
B.A. Evangel University

Teaching and Research Interests: Hebrew Bible / Old Testament; Semitic languages (biblical Hebrew; Akkadian; Ugaritic); history of biblical interpretation; archaeology of the ancient Near East; comparative religion in the ancient world; Greek Classics; the Book of Job

Classes Brian is Currently Teaching

Brian R. Doak is the newest full time addition to the Department of Religious Studies, joining the faculty in the Fall of 2011. Prior to this, he taught a range of courses on the Bible, Classics, and Hebrew language at Harvard University (Teaching Fellow, 2008–2010), Missouri State University (2004–2006), and Evangel University (2004–2006). Brian has conducted archaeological fieldwork with the Leon Levy Expedition to Ashkelon (Israel) and served as an editorial assistant for Harvard Theological Review. In 2009, he was awarded a Derek Bok Center for Teaching and Learning Certificate of Distinction at Harvard University, and he is the recent recipient of the Aviram Prize (2012) for archaeological research.

Currently, he is working on a book entitled Natural Theologies: The Transformation of Israelite Anthropology in the Book of Job (to be published by Fortress Press, forthcoming 2014)

Brian's first book, The Last of the Rephaim: Conquest and Cataclysm in the Heroic Ages of Ancient Israel, was published by the Ilex Foundation via Harvard University Press (December, 2012). Other recent publications include “Ezekiel’s Topography of the (Un-)Heroic Dead in Ezek 32:17–32,” Journal of Biblical Literature (in press, 2013); “The Fate and Power of Heroic Bones and the Politics of Bone Transfer in Ancient Israel and Greece,” Harvard Theological Review (in press, 2013); “Funerary Iconography on an Infant Burial Jar from Ashkelon," co-authored with K. Birney, Israel Exploration Journal (2011)“‘Some Worthless and Reckless Fellows’: Landlessness and Parasocial Leadership in Judges," Journal of Hebrew Scriptures (2011); and “Legalists, Visionaries, and New Names: Sectarianism and the Search for Apocalyptic Origins in Isaiah 56–66,” Biblical Theology Bulletin (2010). Brian is a member of the Society of Biblical Literature, the American Academy of Religion, the American Schools of Oriental Research, and the Society for Ancient Mediterranean Religions.