JUDAISM  AND  CHRISTIANITY   IN  THE  
GRAECO-ROMAN  WORLD  (JCGRW):

From Second Temple to Late Antiquity

GRADUATE   PROGRAM
The University of Michigan - Department of Near Eastern Studies

4111 Thayer Academic Bldg.   202 S. Thayer Street   Ann Arbor, MI 48104-1608  
phone (734) 764-0314   fax (734) 936-2679       


JCGRW Graduate Students


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Near Eastern Studies

PhD Students

Stephanie Bolz		 Prior to studying at the University of Michigan, Stephanie Bolz earned her B.A. in History from Cornell University and her M.A. in Near Eastern Languages and Cultures from Ohio State University. In Sept. 2007 she presented a paper entitled "The Christianization of Magic in the Legal Discourse of the Theodosian Code" at Columbia University. Additionally, in 2008 she received the Michigan Center for Early Christian Studies Award. Stephanie has finished coursework and is currently preparing for her prelim exams. Her current research interests include Jewish magic and divination as well as rabbinic literature.

Jacob Feeley		 Jacob grew up partly in Berkeley, California, and partly in Jerusalem, Israel, before attending Oberlin College and earning a B.A. in Classics. After teaching Latin at the Greenwich Country Day School for a while he went on to study ancient Judaism at the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York, earning a Masters in 2006. He then returned to teaching high school Latin for two more years before deciding to pursue his PhD at the University of Michigan. His interests include: Greek-Jewish literature, the social history of Jews during the Roman Empire, and the influence of Greco-Roman culture on the rabbis. He and his wife, Elana, have an African-Grey parrot, and two cats named Phineas and Atalanta.

Anne Krepps		 This is Anne's fourth year in the JCGRW program. She received her B.A. from the University of Michigan in Near Eastern Studies and an M.A. from UC Berkeley, also in Near Eastern Studies with a focus on ancient languages. She recently presented a paper, "From Secret Knowledge to Public Paideia: Citations of Jubilees in Epiphanius' Panarion," at the Second Enoch Graduate Seminar in Princeton, and during the academic year 2008-2009 will be a Junior Fellow at the Sweetland Writing Seminar. Her interests include the intellectual history of Gnosticism and the parting of ways between Christianity and Judaism.

Isaac Oliver		 Isaac completed his second year of graduate studies in Michigan. Before arriving here, he earned a BA and an MA in religion from Andrews University (Michigan). During his studies, he spent years at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, in France, Argentina, and Austria, studying Modern Hebrew, Judaism, and Jewish History and learning modern languages and theology. He also studied Syriac at the University of Notre Dame. More recently, in addition to taking classes in Michigan, he has been working on an annotated bibliography on the Book of Jubilees, which will be published in the journal Henoch. Isaac will be spending the summer of 2008 at the Pardes Institute and the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, improving his skills in classical rabbinic texts and Modern Hebrew. His interests include the parting of the ways, "Jewish-Christianity," Noahide Laws, the New Testament, and rabbinic literature.

Ron Ruark		 Ron joined our program in 2001. He has earned degrees from Bryan College, Dallas Theological Seminary, and Marquette University Law School. Ron is primarily interested in the Gospel of Mark, particularly its messianic themes, and the church in Rome in the mid-first century. Ron has taught Bible and World Religions at Oakland Community College and Bible and Theology at Ashland Theological Seminary. He has also taught as a Graduate Student Instructor at U-M. Ron is a practicing attorney in the State of Michigan.

PhD Candidates

Harold Ellens		 J. Harold Ellens Has joined our program after a long and fruitful career both in the US army, where he retired as a Colonel after 37 years of service and as an accomplished Psychologist for which he earned a PhD in 1970. He has published and edited numerous articles and volumes in the fields of theology and Psychology. At Michigan, after completing his classes and prelim exams, Harold is currently writing his dissertation on the Son of Man in the Gospel of John.

Jason von Ehrenkrook		 Jason is currently working on a dissertation on the role and imagery of statuary in the writings of the Jewish historian Flavius Josephus, which he expects to defend in Winter 2009. In recent years he was awarded the Rackham Predoctoral Research Fellowship, the Marshall Weinberg Prize for excellence in Judaic Studies, and the Nathan D. Metzger Award for excellence in writing. Jason presented a paper at the 2007 SBL Annual Meeting titled "Sculpture, Space and the Poetics of Idolatry in Josephus' Bellum Judaicum," an expanded version of which was published in the Journal for the Study of Judaism 39 (2008): 170-191. His paper proposal for the 2008 SBL Annual Meeting, "Monsters in Drag: Effeminizing Tyranny in Josephus' Bellum Judaicum and Greco-Roman Political Invective," was accepted for a cosponsored panel on the intersection of sexuality, race and ethnicity in antiquity.

James Waddell		 James studied Classics at the University of Nebraska in Lincoln (B.A.) and Washington University in St. Louis (M.A.). He also studied at Concordia Seminary in St. Louis (M.Div.; S.T.M.). After completing the M.A. at Michigan and advancing to candidacy, James is now writing his dissertation as a study of Jewish messianism between the second century BCE and the second century CE. His dissertation is titled "Son of Man and Kyrios: A Comparative Analysis of Jewish Messianism in the Parables of Enoch and the Letters of Paul."

Justin Winger		 Justin received a B.A. in Religious Studies (Greek New Testament) from Westmont College in Santa Barbara, CA and an M.A. in Theology from Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, CA, where he also taught Biblical Hebrew and Greek. In Michigan, he recently completed his Preliminary Exams and advanced to Candidacy and was also the recipient of the Leroy Waterman Award in Hebrew and Jewish Cultural Studies. His dissertation will focus on the Palestinian synagogue in the post-Second Temple period. Justin has been an area supervisor for archaeological excavations at Sepphoris and Tel Kedesh (Israel) as well as in the Basilica of San Severo (Ravenna, Italy), the latter as part of the Summer Program in Archaeology at the American Academy in Rome in 2007. In 2008-9 he will work on his dissertation as a Junior Research Fellow at the Albright Institute for Archaeological Research in Jerusalem.

Visiting Students

Veronika Bachmann		 Veronika studied Theology and Philosophy in Tubingen, Germany, and Fribourg, Switzerland. After earning her M.A. from University of Fribourg (2003), she started working at University of Zurich, where she is about to complete her dissertation on the Enochic Book of the Watchers. A fellowship awarded from the Swiss National Science Foundation allowed her to spend a year at the Department of Near Eastern Studies (2007) in Michigan and to deepen her research especially in contact with Prof. Gabriele Boccaccini and his students. Beside the early Enoch Literature, Veronika's interests include Biblical exegesis, feminist approaches and iconography.