Position:

British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow; Research Fellow of Wolfson College, Oxford

Faculty / College Address:

Oriental Institute / Wolfson College

Email:

timothy.law@orinst.ox.ac.uk

Research Interests:

My main research is on the translations, revisions, and recensions of the biblical text in early Judaism and Christianity. The texts and versions include the Hebrew Bible, Qumran materials, Aramaic Targums, Greek Septuagint, other Greek Jewish versions, the Latin Vulgate and the so-called ‘daughter versions’ transmitted in the various languages of Eastern Christianity (Coptic, Syriac, Armenian, Georgian, Ethiopic, etc.). Textual study provides a solid base from which to address questions concerning the formation of Scripture and the developvment of the idea of an authoritative text within both Judaism and Christianity.

Current Projects:

• Studies on the Syrohexapla of Kingdoms
• Origen’s Hexapla: A New Edition of the Fragments of Related Greek Renderings of the Old Testament (Editor, III-IV Kingdoms, The Hexapla Project)

Courses Taught:

• Elementary Hebrew
• Biblical Hebrew Prose
• Biblical Hebrew Poetry
• Psalms
• Latin Vulgate
• Septuagint texts
• Cyril of Jerusalem (Greek reading class)
• Beginner's and Intermediate Syriac
• Formation of Rabbinic Judaism
• Varieties of Second Temple Judaism

Recent Publications:

Books:

• Origenes Orientalis: The Preservation of Origen’s Hexapla in the Syrohexapla of 3 Reigns (De Septuaginta Investigationes, 1; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, forthcoming).
• T.M. Law and A.G. Salvesen (eds.), Greek Scripture and the Rabbis: Studies from the European Association of Jewish Studies Seminar, 2010 (Contributions to Biblical Exegesis and Theology; Leuven: Peeters Press, expected 2011).

Articles:

• ‘A History of Research on Origen’s Hexapla: From Masius to the Hexapla Project’, BIOSCS 40 (2007): 30-48.
•  ‘Origen’s Parallel Bible: Textual Criticism, Apologetics, or Exegesis?’, Journal of Theological Studies 59.1 (2008): 1-21.
• ‘The Translation of Symmachus in 1 Kings (3 Reigns)’, in Melvin H. K. Peters (ed.), XIII Congress of the International Organization of Septuagint and Cognate Studies (Septuagint and Cognate Studies; Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2008), pp. 277-292.
• ‘La version syro-hexaplaire et la transmission textuelle de la Bible grecque’, in F. Briquelle-Chatonnet and Muriel Debie (eds.) L’Ancien Testament en Syriaque (Études syriaques, 5; Paris: Geuthner, 2008), pp. 101-20.
•  ‘The Use of the Greek Bible in some Byzantine Jewish Glosses on Solomon’s Building Campaign’, in N.R.M. de Lange, et al. (eds.), Jewish Reception of Greek Bible Versions (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2009).
• ‘Symmachus in Antioch?: The Translation of Symmachus in the Antiochian Recension of 1 Kings (3 Reigns)’, Textus 25 (2011).
• T.M. Law and T. Kauhanen, ‘Methodological Reflections on the Study of Kingdoms: A Response to Siegfried Kreuzer’, BIOSCS 43 (2011).
• ‘How Not to Use 3 Reigns: A Plea to Scholars of the Books of Kings’, Vetus Testamentum 61.2 (2011).
• ‘Why are the Three Ignored in the Study of the Textual History of the Historical Books?’, in B. Lemmelijn, H. Ausloos, and J.C. Trebolle Barrera (eds.), After Qumran: Old and New Editions of Biblical Texts. The Historical Books (BETL; Leuven: Peeters, expected 2011).
• ‘An Often Neglected Version in the Textual History of 1 Kings’, in a forthcoming FS(Supplements to the Journal for the Study of Judaism; Leiden: Brill, expected 2011).
• ‘Kaige, Aquila, and Jewish Revision’, in T.M. Law and A.G. Salvesen (eds.), Greek Scripture and the Rabbis: Studies from the European Association of Jewish Studies Seminar, 2010 (Contributions to Biblical Exegesis and Theology; Leuven: Peeters Press, expected 2011).
• ‘Aramaic and Syriac’, ‘Aramaic Levi Document’, ‘Bible, Syriac Translation of’, ‘Dionysius the Areopagite’, ‘Elephantine Papyri’, ‘Ephrem’, and ‘Testament of Job’, in Roger Bagnall, Kai Brodersen, Craige Champion, Andrew Erskine and Sabine Huebner (eds.), Enclyclopedia of Ancient History (Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, expected 2011).
• ‘3-4 Kingdoms’, in James K. Aitken (ed.), Companion to the Septuagint (London: T & T Clark International, expected 2011).
• ‘The Armenian Version of the Song of Hannah (1 Samuel 2)’, in C. Seppänen and E. Perttilä (eds.), The Textual Traditions of the Song of Hannah (expected 2012).

Works in Progress:

• When God Spoke Greek (New York: Oxford University Press, due 2012).
• III Kingdoms (1 Kings), Origen’s Hexapla: A New Edition of the Fragments of Related Greek Renderings of the Old Testament (The Hexapla Project; Leuven: Peeters Publishers, in progress, expected 2012).
• J. Trebolle Barrera, P. Torijano Morales, A. Piquer Otero and T. M. Law, A Synoptic Polyglot Edition of 1-2 Kings (Madrid: CSIC, in progress, expected 2013).
• P. Hugo and T. M. Law, Septuaginta: Vetus Testamentum Graecum auctoritate academiae scientiarum Gottingensis editum, Samuelis Liber Secundus (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, in progress, expected 2014).
• IV Kingdoms (2 Kings), Origen’s Hexapla: A New Edition of the Fragments of Related Greek Renderings of the Old Testament (The Hexapla Project; Leuven: Peeters Publishers, expected 2015).

Further Info:

www.hexapla.org