Christine Neal Thomas, Ph.D., M.Div.

Assistant Professor of Hebrew Bible

Contact Information

school/program: Pines School of Graduate Studies, Rabbinical School (US)
academic field: Bible and Cognate Studies
campus: Cincinnati

After serving as Visiting Assistant Professor of Bible and Cognate Languages at HUC–JIR from 2013-2018, Christine Neal Thomas became Assistant Professor of Hebrew Bible at Xavier University in joint appointment with HUC–JIR. In the words of Xavier President Emeritus Michael Graham, S.J., “Her appointment represents our concerted focus on the need for interreligious dialogue and engagement as well as religious mutuality and intellectual vitality.”

Christine Neal Thomas holds a Ph.D. from Harvard University’s Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations and a M.Div. from Princeton Theological Seminary. She is a graduate of Smith College and studied at the University of Tokyo on a Fulbright Fellowship. At HUC–JIR she teaches rabbinical students and doctoral and masters students courses in biblical literature and exegesis, as well as courses in ancient Near Eastern languages. She enjoys advising rabbinical student sermons and doctoral dissertations. At Xavier she teaches courses in Hebrew Bible and a Theological Foundations course which includes a focus on Judaism and Jewish–Christian relations. Her scholarship focuses both on biblical literature and the history of the ancient Near East. She explores gender dynamics in biblical narratives as well as the roles played by royal women in the political world of Late Bronze Age Syria.

Biblical Prophecy

The Drama of King David

Women, Gender, and Biblical Narrative

The Book of Judges

The Joseph Cycle

Jewish History: from the Judges to the Rabbis

Biblical Aramaic

Aramaic Targums

Akkadian Texts from Ugarit

Ph.D. in Hebrew Bible and Northwest Semitics, Harvard University, Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, 2014

M.Div., Princeton Theological Seminary, 2001

Fulbright Fellowship, University of Tokyo, 1994–1995

B.A. in Women’s Studies, Japanese Language and Literature, magna cum laude, highest departmental honors, Smith College, 1994