Dr James AitkenBA (Durham)MA (Durham)PhD (Cantab)
Academic Director
(s. September 2007)
Contact
James.Aitken@woolfinstitute.cam.ac.uk
Telephone: (44)(1223)742-157
"The importance of Jewish-Christian relations for me is its handling of the relations between different cultures and traditions. Where society can often see groups as socially and intellectually distinct, it is our task to break down the false boundaries, consider the similarities, and find the sources of each person's perceptions. Any academic discipline needs to be seen in its wider contexts and time, and that is one task for the relations if we are to understand it properly in the modern world."
Research interests
His research interests include early Jewish literature and history, and the history of biblical interpretation, as well as the study of ancient languages (especially Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek), lexicography and semantics, early Jewish literature and history, and ancient Jewish-Christian relations.
Publications
Books
- The Quest for the Historical Septuagint (with T. Rajak, J. Dines and S. Pearce) (Cambridge, forthcoming).
- The Semantics of Blessing and Cursing in Ancient Hebrew (Louvain: Peeters, 2007).
- Editor: A Handbook of the Septuagint (London: T&T Clark, forthcoming).
- Editor: Jewish Perspectives on Hellenistic Rulers (with T. Rajak, S. Pearce & J. Dines) (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007).
- Editor: Challenges in Jewish--Christian Relations (with E. Kessler) (New York: Paulist, 2006).
- Note also: G.I. Davies, assisted by J.K. Aitken, D.R. de Lacey, P.A. Smith & J. Squirrel, Ancient Hebrew Inscriptions: Corpus and Concordance, vol. 2. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004).
Articles
- Demetrios Database of Septuagint Greek Ongoing
- 'A lexical database of Septuagint Greek and its lexicographic possibilities', in A. Thompson, B. Fraser & J.K. Aitken (eds), Ancient Greek lexicography after Liddell and Scott (Cardiff: University Press of Wales), forthcoming.
- 'Phonological Features in Greek Papyri and Inscriptions as related to the Septuagint', forthcoming.
- 'Social Context in Biblical Lexicons', in T. Falla et al. (ed.), Perspectives in Syriac Linguistics (ISLP; Gorgias Press, 2008).
- 'Other Hebrew Lexicons: Zorell and Alonso Schoekel', in T. Falla et al.(ed.), Perspectives in Syriac Linguistics (ISLP; Gorgias Press, 2008).
- 'Poet and Critic: Royal Ideology and the Greek Translator of Proverbs’, in Jewish Perspectives on Hellenistic Rulers(Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007).
- 'The God of the pre-Maccabees: Designations of the divine in the early Hellenistic period', in R.P. Gordon (ed.), The God of Israel (Cambridge, 2007).
- 'Rhetoric and Poetry in Greek Ecclesiastes', Bulletin of the International Organization for Septuagint and Cognate Studies 38 (2006), pp. 55-78.
- 'What does Christianity in Jewish terms mean?’, in J.K. Aitken & E.D. Kessler (eds), Challenges in Jewish--Christian Relations (New York: Paulist Press, 2006), 203-17.
- 'Sanctus Matthaeus, magister sapientiae, summa cum laude', in Jeremy Corley & Vincent Skemp (eds), Intertextual Studies in Ben Sira and Tobit (CBQMS, 38; Washington, DC: The Catholic Biblical Association of America, 2005), pp. 264-79.
- 'Introducing the Septuagint', Bulletin of Judaeo-Greek Studies 34 (Summer, 2004).
- 'Hengel's, Judentum und Hellenismus', Journal of Biblical Literature 123 (2004), pp. 331–41.
- 'Divine Will and Providence', in R. Egger-Wenzel (ed.), Ben Sira's God (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2002), pp. 282–301.
- 'Lexical semantics and the cultural context of knowledge in Job 28, illustrated by the meaning of chaqar', in E. van Wolde (ed.), Job 28: Cognition in Context (Biblical Interpretation Series, 64; Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2003), pp. 119–138.
- 'Culture, Identity and Faith: Jewish–-Christian Relations in a Multicultural Context', in E. Kessler, J. Pawlikowski & J. Banki (eds), Jews and Christians in Conversation: Crossing Generations and Cultures (Cambridge: Orchard Academic, 2002), pp. 215-234.
- 'The proposed Aramaic background to Mark 9:11', Journal of Theological Studies 53/1 (2002), pp. 75-80.
- 'schoinos in the Septuagint', Vetus Testamentum 50.4 (2000), pp. 433-444.
- 'Biblical Interpretation as Political Manifesto: The Seleucid Setting of the Wisdom of Ben Sira', Journal of Jewish Studies 51.2 (2000), pp. 191-208.
- 'Jewish Tradition and Culture [66-430CE]', in P.F. Esler (ed.), The Early Christian World (London: Routledge, 2000), pp. 80-110.
- 'Apocalyptic, Revelation and Early Jewish Wisdom Literature', in C.T.R. Hayward & P.J. Harland (eds), New Heaven and New Earth. Prophecy and the Millennium: Essays in honour of Anthony Gelston (VT Suppl. 77; Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1999), pp. 181-93.
- 'The Semantics of “Glory” in Ben Sira - traces of a development in post-Biblical Hebrew?' in T. Muraoka and J.F. Elwolde (eds), Sirach,Scrolls and Sages: Proceedings of a Second International Symposium on the Hebrew of the Dead Sea Scrolls, Ben Sira and the Mishnah, held at Leiden University, 15-17 December 1997 (STDJ xxxiii; Leiden: E.J.Brill, 1999), pp. 1-24.
- 'Hebrew Study in Ben Sira's Beth Midrash', in W. Horbury (ed.), Hebrew Study from Ezra to Ben-Yehuda (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1999), pp. 27-37.
- 'The Language of the Septuagint: Recent theories, Future Prospects', Bulletin of Judaeo-Greek Studies 24 (1999), pp. 24-33.
- Various semantic studies in T. Muraoka (ed.) Semantics of Ancient Hebrew (Abr-Nahrain Suppl, 6; Louvain: Peeters Press, 1998), pp. 11-37, 74-78, 79-85, 86-88, 101-105, 114-21, 137-45.
- 'Hippocrates on Necrotising Fasciitis', The Lancet, August 1994 (with V. Deschamps & M. Lee).
- Author of entries in the following reference works: Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart, Cambridge Dictionary of Classical Civilization (2006), A Dictionary of Jewish--Christian Relations (2005).
- Also co-editor of Bulletin of Judaeo-Greek Studies.
Employment
Formerly he was Research Associate in the Faculty of Divinity, where he specialized in ancient Hebrew semantics. From 1 April 2001 to Spetember 2005, he has been a Research Fellow in the "Greek Bible in the Graeco-Roman World" project at the University of Reading, and a member of the AHRB Parkes Centre of the University of Southampton.
Teaching
He has taught in the Faculties of Divinity and Oriental Studies in the areas of ancient languages, Old Testament, and early Jewish literature and history. He has also supervised students from the Faculty of Classics. He has lectured on Jewish Identity at the University of Southampton and on Jews in the Graeco-Roman world and general classical studies at the University of Reading. Currently he lectures on Hebrew texts and language in the Faculty of Oriental Studies.
Education
James Aitken studied at St Chad's College, University of Durham and Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge.