Anathea Portier-Young

Associate Professor of Old Testament
Office: 
202 Gray

Duke Divinity School
Box 90968
Durham, NC 27708-0968

apyoung@div.duke.edu
(919) 660-3404
Curriculum Vitae: 
PDF icon Portier-Youngcv2023.pdf
Degrees

B.A., Yale University
M.A.B.L, Graduate Theological Union/Jesuit School of Theology at Berkeley
Ph.D., Duke University

Professor Portier-Young specializes in second temple Jewish literature, with special attention to early Jewish apocalypses, testaments, and novellas from the third through first centuries BCE. Her other research interests include prophecy, embodiment, incarceration, identity, sexuality, gender, and ethnicity, and traditions of violence and nonviolence in Old Testament and other early Jewish literature. Her book Apocalypse Against Empire: Theologies of Resistance in Early Judaism (Eerdmans, 2011) views the first Jewish apocalypses as literature of resistance to imperial domination and hegemony. Her second book, Prophecy in the Body (in progress), argues for the centrality of embodied experience, action, and reception within ancient Israelite and Judean prophecy. She is co-editor of the forthcoming volume Scripture and Justice (Lexington Press). Portier-Young has published scholarly articles on violence in biblical literature, apocalyptic literature and imagination, and on the books Daniel, Judges, Esther, Tobit, 1 Enoch, Testament of Job, Joseph and Aseneth, and 1 Corinthians. She writes regularly for the website WorkingPreacher.org.

Selected Publications

Books:

Peer-Reviewed Journal Articles:

  • “Languages of Identity and Obligation: Daniel as Bilingual Book,” Vetus Testamentum 60:1 (2010) 98-115.
  • “Tongues and Cymbals: Contextualizing 1 Corinthians 13:1,” Biblical Theology Bulletin 35:3 (Fall 2005) 99-105.
  • Sweet Mercy Metropolis: Interpreting Aseneth’s Honeycomb,” Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha 14:2 (2005) 133-157.

Book Chapters:

  • “I Sing the Body Politic: Stillborn Desire and the Birth of Israel in Judges 5,” in Celebrate Her for the Fruit of Her Hands: Essays in Honor of Carol L. Meyers, ed. Karla Bohmbach and Charles Carter. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, forthcoming (manuscript delivered November 2008).
  • Response to “The Fifth Word: Honoring Parents,” by Byron Sherwin, pp. 100-111 in The Ten Commandments for Jews, Christians, and Others. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2007.
  •  “Eyes to the Blind: A Dialogue between Tobit and Job,” pp. 14-27 in Intertextual Studies in Ben Sira and Tobit: Essays in Honor of Alexander A. Di Lella, OFM, ed. Jeremy Corley and Vincent Skemp. CBQMS 38. Washington, DC: Catholic Biblical Association, 2005.

Short Articles and Reviews:

  • “Daniel,” Dictionary of Scripture and Ethics, ed. Joel Green. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic Press (forthcoming).
  • “1 Maccabees,” Dictionary of Scripture and Ethics, ed. Joel Green. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic Press (forthcoming).
  • “2 Maccabees,” Dictionary of Scripture and Ethics, ed. Joel Green. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic Press (forthcoming).
  • “1 Maccabees,” The NRSV People’s Bible with Apocrypha, ed. Curtiss Paul de Young, Wilda C. Gafney, Leticia Guardiola. Augsburg Fortress, 2008.
  • “2 Maccabees,” The NRSV People’s Bible with Apocrypha, ed. Curtiss Paul de Young, Wilda C. Gafney, Leticia Guardiola. Augsburg Fortress, 2008.
  • “Tobit,” The NRSV People’s Bible with Apocrypha, ed. Curtiss Paul de Young, Wilda C. Gafney, Leticia Guardiola. Augsburg Fortress, 2008.
  •  “Entering into Lamentations,” pp. 226-228 in Teaching the Bible: Practical Strategies for Classroom Instruction. SBL Resources for Biblical Studies Series. SBL, 2005.
  • “Dominion requires service, caring,” The New Southern Catholic Radical, Spring 2005.

Professor Portier Young is also a frequent contributor to workingpreacher.org

Recent Courses
  • Introduction to Old Testament Interpretation
  • Genesis
  • Daniel and Apocalyptic Literature
  • Jonah and English Literature
  • Hebrew Prose Narrative
  • Hebrew Poetry
  • Introduction to Biblical Hebrew
  • Intertestamental Literature
  • Ethnicity, Election, and Racism
  • Eros and Allegory
  • Ethics and Violence in the Old Testament
  • Song of Songs
  • The Theology of G. K. Chesterton
  • Biblical Hermeneutics
  • Hebrew Syntax and Exegesis
  • History of Interpretation of Jonah