Dr. Bill T. Arnold
Paul S. Amos Professor of Old Testament Interpretation
Dr. Bill T. Arnold is the Paul S. Amos Professor of Old Testament Interpretation. He joined the Asbury Theological Seminary faculty in 1995. While at Asbury, Dr. Arnold has served in several administrative positions, first as Chair of the Area of Biblical Studies, then as Director of Postgraduate Studies and finally as Vice President of Academic Affairs/Provost.
His research encompasses Old Testament and ancient Near Eastern studies, both separately and in combination. He specializes in Pentateuchal interpretation and is currently writing a two-volume commentary on Deuteronomy, the first installment of which appeared in 2022. He has written on many aspects of Old Testament interpretation, including Hebrew language and the history of Israelite religion. Past publications have taken up specific portions of the Hebrew Bible (commentaries on Genesis and 1-2 Samuel), as well as a grammar (A Guide to Biblical Hebrew Syntax, with John H. Choi), and introductory materials (Who Were the Babylonians? and Encountering the Old Testament, with Bryan E. Beyer).
His 2014 volume with Cambridge University Press (Introduction to the Old Testament) approaches the Hebrew Scriptures through the interpretive lenses of monotheism for secular classrooms, aiming to show the relevance of the Old Testament for Jews, Christians, Muslims, and secularists, and is now being revised for a second edition. Other recent works include the edited volume The Cambridge Companion to Genesis (Cambridge University Press, 2022), Deuteronomy 12-26: A Handbook on the Hebrew Text (with Paavo N. Tucker, 2022), The World around the Old Testament: The People and Places of the Ancient Near East (edited by Brent A. Strawn; Baker, 2021), and Ancient Israel’s History: An Introduction to Issues and Sources (edited with Richard S. Hess; Baker, 2014). His scholarly contributions have appeared in the following journals: Archiv für Orientforschung, Catholic Biblical Quarterly, Journal of Biblical Literature, Journal of the American Oriental Society, Journal of Theological Interpretation, Journal of Northwest Semitic Languages, Vetus Testamentum, Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft, and Zeitschrift für altorientalische und biblische Rechtsgeschichte.
Arnold served as co-chair of the Genesis Program Unit for the Society of Biblical Literature 2017-2021 (with Professor Naomi Steinberg, DePaul University), and since 2019 serves as co-chair of the SBL Deuteronomy Program Unit (with Dr. Madhavi Nevader, University of St Andrews). Previously, he served on the Board of Trustees of the American Schools of Oriental Research, 2007-2011, and ASOR’s Committee on Publications, 2008-2014.
Arnold is General Editor (Hebrew Bible/Old Testament) for the New Cambridge Bible Commentary series (NCBC), Editor of the Baker Commentary on the Old Testament: Pentateuch (BCOTP), and Series Editor of the New International Commentary on the Old Testament (NICOT).
View Dr. Arnold’s profile on Academia.edu