John Ritzema (KCL) - 2017-18 Students
john.ritzema@kcl.ac.uk

Theophany and the Judahite Temple Cult in the Hebrew Bible

I’m working on a study of the relationship between visions of YHWH and the Judahite cult (the temple, the priesthood, sacrifice, and sacred imagery), as presented in texts within the Hebrew Bible. I aim to identify features distinctive of cult-focused theophany accounts, and to reconstruct the implicit theological beliefs that cultic theophanies presume. My research is building on recent work on temples and prophecy in the ancient Near East, on the corporeality of the Hebrew deity, and on epiphany as a feature of ancient Greek religion. I’m particularly interested in Verity Platt’s work on the semiotics of epiphany in early Greek art and literature.