Professor Kristin De Troyer will be taking take up the post of Professor of Old Testament/Hebrew Bible at the University of St Andrews as of 1 June 2008. Professor De Troyer is currently Professor of Hebrew Bible at the Claremont School of Theology and Professor of Religion at the Claremont Graduate University in California. She is also the Program Chair for the International Society of Biblical Literature.

The current focus of her research and teaching is on the Second Temple Period and she has developed a special interest in the history of the biblical text, its translations and their hermeneutical aspects.

She has authored, among other books, Joshua (Papyri Graecae Schøyen, PSchøyen I , ed. Rosario Pintaudi, Papyrologica Florentina, XXXV/Manuscripts in the Schøyen Collection, V; Firenze: Gonnelli, 2005); Rewriting the Sacred Text: What the Old Greek Texts Tell Us about the Literary Development of the Bible (Atlanta: SBL, 2003), which was translated and revised in a German edition, Die Septuaginta und die Endgestalt des Alten Testaments: Untersuchungen zur Entstehungsgeschichte alttestamentlicher Texte (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2005); and The End of the Alpha Text of Esther: Translation and Narrative Technique in MT 8:1-17, LXX 8:1-17, and AT 7:14-41 (Atlanta: SBL, 2000-English; Louvain: Peeters, 1997-Dutch).

She has also co-authored Minor Prophets (Biblia Qumranica, 3B, Leiden: Brill: 2004) and From Quest to Q (Peeters, 2001) and co-edited and/or contributed to several volumes including: Pre-Maccabean Literature from the Qumran Library and Its Importance for the Study of the Hebrew Bible (DSD 13/3; Leiden: Brill, 2006); Reading the Present in the Qumran Library: The Perception of the Contemporary by Means of Scriptural Interpretation (Symposium Series, 30; Atlanta, GA: SBL, 2005); Truth: Interdisciplinary Dialogues in a Pluralist Age (Studies in Philosophical Theology; Louvain: Peeters, 2003); Wholly Woman, Holy Blood: A Feminist Critique of Purity and Impurity (TPI-2003). She is also preparing the publication of Kristin De Troyer, Armin Lange, with the assistance of Luke L. Schulte, Prophecy and the Dead Sea Scrolls (CBET, Louvain: Peeters).

Kristin De Troyer is a member of the Council of the Society of Biblical Literature and co-director of the Biblia Qumranica Project, which envisions to publishing the Biblical texts of the Dead Sea Scrolls in a synopsis. She is editor of the series Contributions to Biblical Exegesis and Theology (Louvain: Peeters), a board member of the Journal for the Study of the Old Testament and the Catholic Biblical Quarterly, and a project director for CGU’s Institute for Antiquity and Christianity. She is also member of the executive committee of the International Organization of Septuagint and Cognate Studies.

Currently, she is writing on a commentary on the Septuagint of Esther, and preparing a commentary on the books of Ezra-Nehemiah, and working on 1 Esdras.

She sounds like a suitable choice for the post, and a very busy person … I only hope not too busy for a beer or two, or a dram or two … or three, with the humble postgrads.