Joseph J. Cross

Joseph J. Cross

I research the Hebrew Bible and Ancient Egyptian literature. Interested in the poetics of ancient literature and its political unconscious. PhD Chicago, 2022.

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esther

Rethinking the ending of Esther

7 minute read

Published:

On January 4th I gave a presentation for the Alttestamentliche Sozietät in the HU Theologische Fakultät on my current research, and decided to focus on a new approach I am trying to take to the book of Esther. This is very much still a work in progress, but it will take some form as part of the book I am working on about novellas, specifically in a chapter about the evidence we have for how novellas continued to be rewritten: these were not always final products, but open to further streams of creativity.

first setne

updates

November 2023 update

3 minute read

Published:

What’s there to say? My two oldest kids are pretty much fluent in German, and I’m still writing!

An Update on the Changes…Life in Berlin

5 minute read

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We’ve moved to Berlin (May/June 2022) and I have started a new position as a researcher at the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, in the Theologische Fakultät, working for an exciting new project at the cutting edge of comparative work in biblical studies and Egyptology called DEMBIB (“From Texts to Literature: Demotic Egyptian Papyri and the Formation of the Hebrew Bible”). Here’s the project website. Check out also my own website, esp. the main page, for an overview of my intellectual interests and projects [Feb 13th 2025 update: note that this “main page” has changed since the original post].

Changes

less than 1 minute read

Published:

I succesfully defended my dissertation in late February and will soon be cast out from the coterie of the U of Chicago. Some exciting changes are on the horizon hopefully, but in the meanwhile, I am working on a few projects that have been put on hold. So keep an eye out for the following: