Joseph Ryan Kelly
@josephkelly.bsky.social
Hebrew Bible PhD. I'm interested in the many ways ancient people would have answered the question, "Is God good?"
Technically speaking . . .
November 13, 2025 at 10:18 PM
Technically speaking . . .
NYTimes pitch: 2025 Democratic Candidates were Doing Politics the Right Way
Am I doing this right?
Am I doing this right?
November 5, 2025 at 1:08 PM
NYTimes pitch: 2025 Democratic Candidates were Doing Politics the Right Way
Am I doing this right?
Am I doing this right?
For the past 2 classes, I've had students argue whether they think Genesis 2-3 and Genesis 4-11 (J/non-P texts) are closer in thought to Atrahasis or Plato's Timaeus, both texts we've treated previously in class. I can't express how thoughtful and creative these students responses have been.
November 4, 2025 at 4:01 PM
For the past 2 classes, I've had students argue whether they think Genesis 2-3 and Genesis 4-11 (J/non-P texts) are closer in thought to Atrahasis or Plato's Timaeus, both texts we've treated previously in class. I can't express how thoughtful and creative these students responses have been.
Another article on Genesis 2-3 that recognizes the core of the story centers on the acquisition of divine knowledge.
New issue of The Catholic Biblical Quarterly Vol. 87, No. 3 (2025) muse.jhu.edu/issue/55660
@cua-press.bsky.social @projectmuse.bsky.social @catholicbiblical.bsky.social
@cua-press.bsky.social @projectmuse.bsky.social @catholicbiblical.bsky.social
October 6, 2025 at 7:33 PM
Another article on Genesis 2-3 that recognizes the core of the story centers on the acquisition of divine knowledge.
I heard a version of this paper nearly a decade ago, and it was such a great paper. Looking forward to revisiting it!
September 23, 2025 at 8:44 PM
I heard a version of this paper nearly a decade ago, and it was such a great paper. Looking forward to revisiting it!
But listen now. We must not go and fight,
Or we will bring more ruin on our heads.
καὶ νῦν ὧδε γένοιτο. πίθεσθέ μοι ὡς ἀγορεύω:
μὴ ἴομεν, μή πού τις ἐπίσπαστον κακὸν εὕρῃ.
The Odyssey 24:461-62
Or we will bring more ruin on our heads.
καὶ νῦν ὧδε γένοιτο. πίθεσθέ μοι ὡς ἀγορεύω:
μὴ ἴομεν, μή πού τις ἐπίσπαστον κακὸν εὕρῃ.
The Odyssey 24:461-62
September 11, 2025 at 1:13 AM
But listen now. We must not go and fight,
Or we will bring more ruin on our heads.
καὶ νῦν ὧδε γένοιτο. πίθεσθέ μοι ὡς ἀγορεύω:
μὴ ἴομεν, μή πού τις ἐπίσπαστον κακὸν εὕρῃ.
The Odyssey 24:461-62
Or we will bring more ruin on our heads.
καὶ νῦν ὧδε γένοιτο. πίθεσθέ μοι ὡς ἀγορεύω:
μὴ ἴομεν, μή πού τις ἐπίσπαστον κακὸν εὕρῃ.
The Odyssey 24:461-62
Called out some local stupidity.
Opinion: Tennessee legislators lob insults but lack ideas
Opinion: Tennessee legislators lob insults but lack ideas for Memphis-Shelby County Schools.
dailymemphian.com
August 7, 2025 at 11:48 AM
Called out some local stupidity.
The link to @blindscholar.bsky.social new book is now working. Get your free copy TODAY!
It's out, and now free to download for the next 2 weeks!
Go give my new book a read (it's short enough to finish in a sitting) and then share it far and wide to your friends who live for the connections between myth, ritual, and economics (all of them)!
Go give my new book a read (it's short enough to finish in a sitting) and then share it far and wide to your friends who live for the connections between myth, ritual, and economics (all of them)!
Reading Creation Myths Economically in Ancient Mesopotamia and Israel
Cambridge Core - Archaeology: General Interest - Reading Creation Myths Economically in Ancient Mesopotamia and Israel
www.cambridge.org
August 4, 2025 at 2:39 PM
The link to @blindscholar.bsky.social new book is now working. Get your free copy TODAY!
I want to reiterate that "hallucination" is a bad metaphor and "bullshit" would be more accurate.
July 23, 2025 at 7:47 PM
I want to reiterate that "hallucination" is a bad metaphor and "bullshit" would be more accurate.
I just picked up Ron Hendel's Genesis 1-11 commentary, and I'm puzzelling over his notes to Genesis 3:7. He says regarding Adam and Eve that "they wish to hide . . . to avoid the shame of being seen naked by each other."
I've always assumed the shame was being seen naked by Yahweh.
I've always assumed the shame was being seen naked by Yahweh.
June 20, 2025 at 7:49 PM
I just picked up Ron Hendel's Genesis 1-11 commentary, and I'm puzzelling over his notes to Genesis 3:7. He says regarding Adam and Eve that "they wish to hide . . . to avoid the shame of being seen naked by each other."
I've always assumed the shame was being seen naked by Yahweh.
I've always assumed the shame was being seen naked by Yahweh.
What bugs me about this announcement—beyond the uncritical belief in the vitue and utilty of gen AI—is that they assume the proper time to integrate gen AI is at the BEGINNING of the learning process. IF we grant a role for gen AI, it should come AFTER developing expertise in a content area, not b4.
Ohio State announces every student will use AI in class
COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) — Starting this fall, every Ohio State student will be asked to use artificial intelligence. “Through AI Fluency, Ohio State students will be ‘bilingual’ — fluent …
www.nbc4i.com
June 9, 2025 at 9:47 PM
What bugs me about this announcement—beyond the uncritical belief in the vitue and utilty of gen AI—is that they assume the proper time to integrate gen AI is at the BEGINNING of the learning process. IF we grant a role for gen AI, it should come AFTER developing expertise in a content area, not b4.
Reposted by Joseph Ryan Kelly
Why is the tree of life in Eden? It is a deceptively simple question, one that is less often answered from the logic of the text and more often answered from our theological presuppositions. I want to unpack some of the issues surrounding the tree of life in Genesis 2-3. 🧵
June 6, 2025 at 2:29 PM
Why is the tree of life in Eden? It is a deceptively simple question, one that is less often answered from the logic of the text and more often answered from our theological presuppositions. I want to unpack some of the issues surrounding the tree of life in Genesis 2-3. 🧵
Why is the tree of life in Eden? It is a deceptively simple question, one that is less often answered from the logic of the text and more often answered from our theological presuppositions. I want to unpack some of the issues surrounding the tree of life in Genesis 2-3. 🧵
June 6, 2025 at 2:29 PM
Why is the tree of life in Eden? It is a deceptively simple question, one that is less often answered from the logic of the text and more often answered from our theological presuppositions. I want to unpack some of the issues surrounding the tree of life in Genesis 2-3. 🧵
Adler and Kratz (and others) are ushering in a welcome paradigm shift in our discipline. I'm pleased to be researching a downstream implication of research like this.
Just finished this latest (2024) book by Prof. Reinhard Kratz, which dovetails extraordinarily well with my own work (as he kindly notes).
He makes the argument that the Maccabean revolt was not the result of any putative decrees by Antiochus IV against Torah observance.
🧵1/4
He makes the argument that the Maccabean revolt was not the result of any putative decrees by Antiochus IV against Torah observance.
🧵1/4
April 25, 2025 at 12:17 PM
Adler and Kratz (and others) are ushering in a welcome paradigm shift in our discipline. I'm pleased to be researching a downstream implication of research like this.
Happy to share that I'll be ending my ten-year hiatus from SBL and presenting in the Hebrew Scriptures and Cognate Literature Section program unit. I'll be talking about Atrahasis, Ludlul, Homer, Hesiod, and the HB:
The Dichotomy between Divine Misbehavior and Goodness: A Cross-Cultural Comparison
The Dichotomy between Divine Misbehavior and Goodness: A Cross-Cultural Comparison
April 16, 2025 at 2:12 PM
Happy to share that I'll be ending my ten-year hiatus from SBL and presenting in the Hebrew Scriptures and Cognate Literature Section program unit. I'll be talking about Atrahasis, Ludlul, Homer, Hesiod, and the HB:
The Dichotomy between Divine Misbehavior and Goodness: A Cross-Cultural Comparison
The Dichotomy between Divine Misbehavior and Goodness: A Cross-Cultural Comparison
This is great language for a syllabus, though I would remove the language of GAI "hallucinating," which implies that the program occasionally malfunctions when, in reality, it bullshits by design. I like to explicitly acknowledge the latter point and link to this article: doi.org/10.1007/s106...
January 9, 2025 at 11:21 PM
This is great language for a syllabus, though I would remove the language of GAI "hallucinating," which implies that the program occasionally malfunctions when, in reality, it bullshits by design. I like to explicitly acknowledge the latter point and link to this article: doi.org/10.1007/s106...
There is a trillion-dollar-shaped hole in every billionaire's heart.
Billionaires have more money than they could ever need but never enough to fill the holes in their souls. They would send every last one of you into an early grave if it meant paying one cent less in taxes.
December 20, 2024 at 12:14 PM
There is a trillion-dollar-shaped hole in every billionaire's heart.
Too much literature on theodicy in Hebrew Bible studies begins from the premise of an all-good all-powerful deity in the text. We should stop doing this and instead ask what ancient complainants are frustrated by, because it isn't the absence of Platonism. library.bibleodyssey.com/articles/the...
Theodicy in the Hebrew Bible - Bible Odyssey
Theodicy is the attempt to understand why a good and all-powerful God allows evil to exist in the world.
library.bibleodyssey.com
December 11, 2024 at 4:06 PM
Too much literature on theodicy in Hebrew Bible studies begins from the premise of an all-good all-powerful deity in the text. We should stop doing this and instead ask what ancient complainants are frustrated by, because it isn't the absence of Platonism. library.bibleodyssey.com/articles/the...
This final group project from a class my wife taught this semester is amazing!
Immigration AD
YouTube video
www.youtube.com
December 10, 2024 at 5:22 PM
This final group project from a class my wife taught this semester is amazing!
I've was reading a work on Platonism in antiquity published by CUP in 2015 and came across this claim: "The majority of modern scholars interpret Gen. 1 as referring to creatio ex nihilo," citing a JTS article from 2002. I find that hard to imagine even in 2002, but utterly untenable in 2015.
December 10, 2024 at 2:58 PM
I've was reading a work on Platonism in antiquity published by CUP in 2015 and came across this claim: "The majority of modern scholars interpret Gen. 1 as referring to creatio ex nihilo," citing a JTS article from 2002. I find that hard to imagine even in 2002, but utterly untenable in 2015.
Great review of a great book! That said, I have one small quibble.
Today at AJR, Ethan Schwartz reviews Esther J. Hamori's God's Monsters. https://buff.ly/3VklYjK
God’s Monsters: Vengeful Spirits, Deadly Angels, Hybrid Creatures, and Divine Hitmen of the Bible — ANCIENT JEW REVIEW
Esther J. Hamori, God’s Monsters: Vengeful Spirits, Deadly Angels, Hybrid Creatures, and Divine Hitmen of the Bible . (Minneapolis: Broadleaf, 2023). Friedrich Nietzsche’s most famous aphorism is…
www.ancientjewreview.com
December 4, 2024 at 6:13 PM
Great review of a great book! That said, I have one small quibble.
Still looking for some additional takes on this from diverse perspectives.
Question for my Early Christianities colleagues: What alternative language is in use to describe"Orthodox" Christians when discussing them alongside Marcionite or Valentinian Christians? I'm looking for language that doesn't imply that this group represents "correct" Christians.
November 29, 2024 at 8:11 PM
Still looking for some additional takes on this from diverse perspectives.
Question for my Early Christianities colleagues: What alternative language is in use to describe"Orthodox" Christians when discussing them alongside Marcionite or Valentinian Christians? I'm looking for language that doesn't imply that this group represents "correct" Christians.
November 28, 2024 at 1:01 PM
Question for my Early Christianities colleagues: What alternative language is in use to describe"Orthodox" Christians when discussing them alongside Marcionite or Valentinian Christians? I'm looking for language that doesn't imply that this group represents "correct" Christians.
Reposted by Joseph Ryan Kelly
I never expected Onan pulling out and ejaculating on the ground to be so useful to my understanding of Gen 2-3. As it turns out, this seemingly random story in Genesis is part of an important pattern in understanding divine punishment in J. Give my new article a read: www.mdpi.com/2077-1444/15...
Neither Cursed nor Punished: Natural Law in Genesis 2–3 and J
Gendered criticism of Eve and general criticism of Eve and Adam are rooted in the idea of their moral failing when they disobey Yahweh. Two lenses bring a more ancient understanding of the text into f...
www.mdpi.com
September 3, 2024 at 2:33 PM
I never expected Onan pulling out and ejaculating on the ground to be so useful to my understanding of Gen 2-3. As it turns out, this seemingly random story in Genesis is part of an important pattern in understanding divine punishment in J. Give my new article a read: www.mdpi.com/2077-1444/15...
Us, escaping the bad place thinking we've finally landed in the good place.
a woman is sitting on a couch in front of a sign that says welcome everything is fine
Alt: Elenore from NBC's The Good Place is sitting on a couch in "The Good Place" in front of a sign that says "Welcome! Everything is fine."
media.tenor.com
November 11, 2024 at 1:14 PM
Us, escaping the bad place thinking we've finally landed in the good place.