Faculty members

Professor Judith Lieu

Lady Margaret's Professor of Divinity, and Fellow of Robinson

Courses taught this academic year

• Tripos: B5 The Johannine Tradition
• C1b Advanced New Testament Greek (with Dr. Andrew Chester & Dr. Peter Head)
• Professor Lieu chairs the Senior New Testament Seminar

Research interests

My current research project, for which I held a Leverhulme Major Research Fellowship in 2007-2009, is a study of the heresiological construction of Marcion and an attempt to locate him within the literary, social, and, theological contexts of the second century. This is part of a broader interest in the second century as a period of creativity and ferment in the development of distinct patterns of Christian thought and practice.

Previously I have worked on the separation and continuing relationships between Jews and Christians, and on the formation of a distinct Christian identity, all within the broader setting of the Graeco-Roman world.

Within the New Testament area I conduct research interest on the Johannine literature, and have recently published a commentary on the Johannine Epistles.

A further area of research and writing is that of feminist and gender analysis of the New Testament and other early Christian literature and history.

I have supervised research students in all these and other aspects of the New Testament and early church, and welcome enquiries from interested and well-qualified candidates.

I shall give my inaugural lecture as Lady Margaret’s Professor of Divinity on 26th January 2010

Publications: books

• I, II, & III John: A Commentary (Louisville, Ky.: Westminster John Knox, 2008)
• Christian Identity in the Jewish and Graeco-Roman World (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004; paperback 2006).
• Neither Jew nor Greek: Constructing Early Christianity (Edinburgh: T.&T. Clark/ Continuum, 2002; paperback London: T&T Clark Int., 2005)
• The Gospel according to Luke  (London: Epworth Press, 1997).
• Image and Reality. The Jews in the World of the Christians in the Second Century  (Edinburgh: T.&T. Clark, 1996; paperback 2003)
• The Theology of the Johannine Epistles (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991).
• The Second and Third Epistles of John: History and Background (Edinburgh: T.&T. Clark, 1986)

Edited:

• with C. Hempel, Biblical Traditions in Transmission: Essays in Honour of Michael A. Knibb (Leiden: Brill, 2006)
• with J. Rogerson, The Oxford Handbook of Biblical Studies (Oxford; Oxford University Press, 2006).
• with J. North, & T. Rajak, The Jews between Pagans and Christians  (London: Routledge, 1992; Second edition, paperback, 1994).

Publications: selected recent articles and essays

• ‘Jews, Christians and “Pagans” in Conflict’, in Critique and Apologetics: Jews, Christians and Pagans in Antiquity, ed. Anders-Christian Jacobsen, Jörg Ulrich, David Brakke (Frankfurt: Lang, 2009) pp. 43-58
• 'Us or You? Persuasion and Identity in 1 John', Journal of Biblical Literature 127 (2008) pp. 805-19.
• 'Gedächtnis und Identität: Die frühchristliche Entdeckung einer Vergangenheit', in ed. J. Dummer & M. Vielberg, Leitbilder im Spannungsfeld von Orthodoxie und Heterodoxie (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner, 2008) pp. 157-70.
• 'Literary Strategies of Personification', in Identity Formation in the New Testament, ed. Bengt Holmberg & Mikael Winninge (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2008) pp. 61-78.
• 'The Gospel of John and Anti-Judaism', in John and Christian Theology, ed. R. Bauckham & C. Mosser (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2008) pp. 168-82.
• 'Charity in early Christian thought and practice', in ed. Dionysios Stathakopoulos, The Kindness of Strangers: Charity in the Pre-Modern Mediterranean (CHS Occasional Publications; London: King's College London, 2007) pp. 13-20.
• 'Bible, Empowerment and Institution', in Poverty, Empowerment, Institutions, ed. C. Sedmak & T. Böhler (Vienna: LIT, 2007) pp. 281-88.
• 'Messiah and Resistance in the Gospel and Epistles of John', in Redemption and Resistance: The Messianic Hopes of Jews and Christians in Antiquity, ed.M. Bockmuehl & J. Carleton Paget (London: T.&T. Clark, 2007) pp. 97-108.
• ‘Where did Jews and Christians Meet (or Part Ways)’, in Los Comienzos del Cristianismo, ed. S. Guijarro (Bibliotheca Salmanticensis, Salamanca, 2006) pp. 217-32.
• 'Justin Martyr and the Transformation of Psalm 22', in Biblical Traditions in Transmission, ed. C. Hempel & J. M. Lieu (Leiden, Brill, 2006) pp. 195-211.
• 'The Jewish Matrix', in The Cambridge History of Christianity I, ed. M. Mitchell & F. M. Young (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006) pp. 214-229.
• 'Reading Jesus in the Wilderness', in Wilderness. Essays in Honour of Frances Young, ed. R. S. Sugirtharajah (London: T.&T. Clark International, 2005) pp. 88-100.
• 'How John Writes', in The Written Gospel, ed. M. Bockmuehl & D. Hagner (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005) pp. 171-183.
• 'The Synagogue and the Separation of the Christians', in The Ancient Synagogue from its Origins until 200 C.E., ed. B. Olsson & M. Zetterholm (CB. NTS 39. Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell, 2003) pp. 189–207.
• 'Impregnable ramparts and walls of iron'. Boundary and Identity in 'Judaism' and 'Christianity', NTS 48 (2002) 297–313.
• 'Not Hellenes but Philistines?', JJS 53 (2002) 246–63.
• 'Anti-Judaism in the Fourth Gospel: Explanation and Hermeneutics' in Anti-Judaism and the Fourth Gospel, ed. R. Bieringer et al. (JCH 1. Assen, Netherlands: Van Gorcum/ Louisville, PA: WJK, 2001) pp. 126-143.
• 'Temple and Synagogue in John', New Testament Studies 45 (1999) 51-69
• 'The Attraction of Women in/to early Judaism and Christianity: Gender and the Politics of Conversion' Journal for the Study of the New Testament.72 (1998) 5-22
• 'The Mother of the Son in the Fourth Gospel', Journal of Biblical Literature 117 (1998) 55-71

Additional information and current responsibilities

I studied at Durham and Birmingham Universities and have taught at The Queen's College, Birmingham, King's College London (where I was Professor of New Testament Studies, 1999-2006), and Macquarie University, Sydney.

Member of the Editorial Boards of Themes in Biblical Narratives (Brill); the Catholic University of America Studies in Early Christianity; Society of Biblical Literature Early Christianity and its Literature Series.

Previously Editor of New Testament Studies.

Member of RAE2008 Panel 61.

Contact details

Faculty of Divinity
West Road
Cambridge CB3 9BS

Tel.: +44 (0)1223 763018
Fax: +44 (0)1223 763003
Email: jml68@cam.ac.uk