Richard S. Briggs
Academic Bibliography
This is a listing of my various academic books and articles.
At the end, in section 6, I list some of the more popular books and short pieces I have written.
(1) Books – Monographs
2021 The Lord is my Shepherd: Psalm 23 for the Life of the Church (Touchstone Texts; Grand Rapids: Baker Academic)
2018 Theological Hermeneutics and the Book of Numbers as Christian Scripture (Reading the Scriptures; Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press)
2010 The Virtuous Reader: Old Testament Narrative and Interpretive Virtue (Studies in Theological Interpretation; Grand Rapids: Baker Academic)
2001 Words in Action: Speech Act Theory and Biblical Interpretation (Edinburgh: T&T Clark & New York: Continuum)
Books – for a general readership
2024 Invisible Kingdom: The Waterboys, Fisherman’s Blues, and the Re-enchantment of the World (Short Theological Engagements with Popular Music; Eugene, OR: Cascade Books)
2019 Jesus for Life: Spiritual Readings in John’s Gospel (Eugene, OR: Cascade Books)
2011 Reading the Bible Wisely. An Introduction to Taking Scripture Seriously (Revised edition; Eugene, OR: Cascade Books) – originally published in 2003 as Reading the Bible Wisely (London: SPCK & Grand Rapids: Baker Academic)
Books – Edited
2023 A New Song. Biblical Hebrew Poetry as Jewish and Christian Scripture (edited with Stephen D. Campbell and Richard G. Rohlfing Jr; Studies in Scripture & Theology; Bellingham, WA: Lexham Academic)
2022 Remember Their Sin No More? Forgiveness and the Hebrew Bible (edited with David J. Shepherd; Eugene, OR: Pickwick Publications, 2022)
2012 A Theological Introduction to the Pentateuch: Interpreting the Torah as Christian Scripture (edited with Joel N. Lohr; Grand Rapids: Baker Academic)
(2) Essays in Edited Volumes
––– ‘Opening up the Penitential Psalms’, in Mark J. Whiting (ed.), The Penitential Psalms: The Rise, Fall and Future of the Seven Psalms (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock), forthcoming
––– ‘Theological Interpretation of Scripture’, in John Barton (ed.), Understanding the Hebrew Bible: Essays by members of the Society for Old Testament Study (Oxford: Oxford University Press), forthcoming
––– ‘Hope in (Reading) the Torah: Meeting the God Who Speaks’, in Alison Lo, Jamie Grant and David Firth (eds.), Hope for the World (Wilmore, KY: Glossa House), forthcoming
2023 ‘Premodern Interpretation and Contemporary Exegesis’, in Ian Boxall and Bradley C, Gregory (eds.), The New Cambridge Companion to Biblical Interpretation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), 301-17
2022 ‘Commitments to Absence and Presence: How Exodus Constructs Forgiveness’, in David J. Shepherd and Richard S. Briggs (eds.), Remember Their Sin No More? Forgiveness and the Hebrew Bible (Eugene, OR: Pickwick Publications), 7-21
2021 ‘The Ostrich and the Sword: Reading the City-Lament of Lamentations Intertextually with the Wilderness Wanderings of the Book of Numbers’, in Heath A. Thomas and Brittany N. Melton (eds.), Reading Lamentations Intertextually (LHBOTS 714; London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark), 43-54
2021 ‘Discerning the Ways of God Beyond Israel: Joseph, Daniel, and the Spirit in Dream Interpretation’, in Ronald Herms, John R. Levison and Archie T. Wright (eds.), The Spirit Says: Inspiration and Interpretation in Israelite, Jewish, and Early Christian Texts (Ekstasis, Religious Experience from Antiquity to the Middle Ages 8; Berlin: De Gruyter), 113-29
2021 ‘Virtue and Torah: The Character of the Instructed Reader’, in Volker Rabens, Jacqueline N. Grey, and Mariam Kamell Kovalishyn (eds.) Key Approaches to Biblical Ethics. An Interdisciplinary Dialogue (Biblical Interpretation Series 189; Leiden: Brill), 195-217
2020 ‘Reading the Historical Books as Part of the Primary History’, in Brad E. Kelle and Brent A. Strawn (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of the Historical Books of the Hebrew Bible (New York: Oxford University Press), 323-38
2018 ‘Sarajevo and the PopMart Lemon: The Fractured Form and Function of U2’s Walk through the Valley of the Shadow of Death’, in Scott Calhoun (ed.), U2 and the Religious Impulse: Take Me Higher (Bloomsbury Studies in Religion and Popular Music; London: Bloomsbury Academic): 75-86 and 209
2016 ‘A Mosaic Picture of Leadership: Faithfulness and Failure, Command and Character, in Old Testament Perspective’, in Patrick Nullens and Steven C. van den Heuvel (eds.), Challenges of Moral Leadership (Christian Perspectives on Leadership and Social Ethics 2; Leuven: Peeters): 97-109
2015 ‘What is a Doctrine of Scriptural Inspiration For? A Dialogue with Carlos Bovell’, in Carlos R. Bovell (ed.), Biblical Inspiration and the Authority of Scripture (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock): 32-43
2015 ‘Constructing the Bible’s Readers: From “Thin Descriptions” to “Thick Portraits”’, in Régis Burnet, Didier Luciani and Geert van Oyen (eds.), Le Lecteur. Sixième Colloque International du RRENAB (BETL 273; Leuven: Peeters): 69-92
2015 ‘The Zeal of Readers in Defence and in Dissent: Phinehas’ Spear, the Covenant of Peace, and the Politics of Hermeneutics’, in R. Timothy McLay (ed.), The Temple in Text and Tradition: A Festschrift in Honour of Robert Hayward (Library of Second Temple Studies Series 83; London: Bloomsbury): 113-39
2013 ‘Biblical Hermeneutics and Scriptural Responsibility’, in Stanley E. Porter and Matthew R. Malcolm (eds.), The Future of Biblical Interpretation: Responsible Plurality in Biblical Hermeneutics (Milton Keynes: Paternoster): 36-52 & 140-44; and (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic): 51-69
2013 ‘“I Perceived in the Books”: The Portrait of Daniel as a Spiritual Student of Scripture’, in Andrew T. Lincoln, J. Gordon McConville and Lloyd K. Pietersen (eds.), The Bible and Spirituality: Exploratory Essays in Reading Scripture Spiritually (Eugene, OR: Cascade Books): 111-27
2013 ‘“The Rock was Christ”: Paul’s Reading of Numbers and the Significance of the Old Testament for Theological Hermeneutics’, in Stanley E. Porter and Matthew R. Malcolm (eds.), Horizons in Hermeneutics: A Festschrift in Honor of Anthony C. Thiselton (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans): 90-116
2013 ‘On “Seeing” what God is “Saying”: Rereading Biblical Narrative in Dialogue with Kevin Vanhoozer’s Remythologizing Theology’, in Roger Kojecký and Andrew Tate (eds.), Visions and Revisions: The Word and the Text (Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing): 29-42; also in an expanded version in Southeastern Theological Review 5.1: 61-82
2012 ‘The Book of Genesis’, in Richard S. Briggs and Joel N. Lohr (eds.), A Theological Introduction to the Pentateuch: Interpreting the Torah as Christian Scripture (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic): 19-50
2012 Editorial contributions to Richard S. Briggs and Joel N. Lohr (eds.), A Theological Introduction to the Pentateuch: Interpreting the Torah as Christian Scripture (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic). With Joel N. Lohr: ‘Introduction: Reading the Pentateuch as Christian Scripture’: 1-18; and with Nathan MacDonald ‘Walter Moberly’s Contributions to the Theological Interpretation of the Pentateuch’: 177-85
2012 ‘Hermeneutics by Numbers? Case Studies in Feminist and Evangelical Interpretation of the Book of Numbers’, in Andrew Sloane (ed.), Tamar’s Tears. Evangelical Engagements with Feminist Old Testament Hermeneutics (Eugene, OR: Pickwick Publications): 65-83
2010 ‘The Bible before us: Evangelical possibilities for taking Scripture seriously’, in Tom Greggs (ed.), New Perspectives for Evangelical Theology. Engaging with God, Scripture, and the World (Oxford: Routledge): 14-28
2009 ‘The Hermeneutics of Reading Genesis after Darwin’, in Stephen C. Barton and David Wilkinson (eds.), Reading Genesis after Darwin (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press): 57-71
2008 ‘Speech-Act Theory’ in David G. Firth & Jamie A. Grant (eds.), Words and the Word: Explorations in Biblical Interpretation and Literary Theory (Nottingham: Apollos): 75-110
(3) Journal Papers: Academic
(=peer-reviewed)
––– ‘The Name “Jesus” in the Old Testament (and especially the Psalter): Christianization and the Shadow of “Salvation” in the Vulgate Text’, Journal of Theological Interpretation, forthcoming
––– ‘The Semantics of Scriptural Language: Rethinking the Impact of the Work of James Barr’, Journal of Theological Studies, forthcoming
2023 ‘The Gospel and Faerie: On Tolkien and the Re-enchantment of Narrative’, Glass 37: 30-38
2020 ‘“So They Say”: An Experiment in Reading Curse, Lament and Persona in Psalm 109’, Glass 33: 55-61
2020 ‘Who Can Read Wisdom? The Implied Virtues of the Readers of Wisdom’s Narratives’, Expository Times 131: 536-44
2020 ‘A Test-Case in Ascriptive Realism: The Quest of the Historical Daniel and its Complex Relationship to the Practices of Scriptural Interpretation’, Journal of Theological Interpretation 14: 41-59
2020 ‘“A Table in the Presence of My Enemies”: “Songs of Descent” from Psalm 23 to U2’s Pop”’, Glass 32: 50-55
2017 ‘The Christian Hermeneutics of Cranmer’s Homilies’, Journal of Anglican Studies 15: 167-87
2017 ‘The Eclipse of Daniel’s Narrative: The limits of historical knowledge in the theological reading of Daniel’, Scottish Journal of Theology 70: 264-77
2015 ‘Křesťanská etika a násilí ve Starém zákoně: hermeneutická svoboda a etická kontroverze’, (‘Christian Ethics and Violence in the Old Testament: Hermeneutical Freedom and Ethical Offence’), Theologia Vitae 5.2: 247-62 (in Czech)
2015 ‘Bölcs Bibliaolvasás A Teolớgiai Hermeneutika Kontextusában’, (‘Reading the Bible Wisely in the Context of Theological Hermeneutics’), Credo (Quarterly of the Lutheran Church in Hungary) 25/3: 29-38 (in Hungarian)
2015 ‘New Directions in Teaching Scripture to those Training for Ministry’, Theology 118: 250-57
2015 ‘Biblical Hermeneutics and Practical Theology: Method and Truth in Context’, Anglican Theological Review 97: 201-17
2015 ‘Lost (and Found) in a Textual World: The Experience of Reading the Bible and David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest’, Glass 27: 44-50
2014 ‘“These are the Days of Elijah”: The Hermeneutical Move from “Applying the Text” to “Living in its World”’, Journal of Theological Interpretation 8.2: 157-74
2012 ‘The Bible as Augmented Reality: Beginning a Conversation’ [with Pete Phillips], Theology and Ministry: An Online Journal 1: 2.1-10
2012 ‘Reading Daniel as Children’s Literature’, Biblical Reception 1: 235-46
2011 ‘How to Do Things with Meaning in Biblical Interpretation’, Southeastern Theological Review 2: 143-60
2011 ‘Scripture in Christian formation: Pedagogy, reading practice and scriptural exemplars’, Theology 114: 83-90
2010 ‘Humans in the Image of God and Other Things Genesis Does Not Make Clear’, Journal of Theological Interpretation 4: 111-26
2009 ‘Juniper Trees and Pistachio Nuts: Trust and Suspicion as Modes of Scriptural Imagination’, Theology 112: 353-63
2009 ‘Reading the sotah Text (Numbers 5:11-31): Holiness and a Hermeneutic Fit for Suspicion’, Biblical Interpretation 17: 288-319
2009 ‘The Methodology of Hermeneutical Research Programmes in Biblical Studies: Some Insights from the Work of Imre Lakatos’, Heythrop Journal 50: 109-15
2007 ‘The Role of the Bible in Formation and Transformation: A Hermeneutical and Theological Analysis’, Anvil 24: 167-82
2006 ‘The Theological Function of Repetition in the Old Testament Canon’, Horizons in Biblical Theology 28: 95-112
2006 ‘What does Hermeneutics have to do with Biblical Interpretation?’, Heythrop Journal 47: 55-74
2004 ‘Gender and God-Talk: Can We Call God “Mother”?’, Themelios 29: 15-25
2002 ‘The Implied Author and the Creation of the World: A Test Case in Reader-Response Criticism’, Expository Times 113: 264-70
2001 ‘The Uses of Speech-Act Theory in Biblical Interpretation’, Currents in Research: Biblical Studies 9: 229-76
(4) Major Articles in Reference Works
2023 ‘Biblical Hermeneutics’, in St Andrews Encyclopaedia of Theology. Edited by Brendan N. Wolfe et al. https://www.saet.ac.uk/Christianity/BiblicalHermeneutics, published online November 2, 2023
2021 ‘Biblical Criticism’, in Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Literature (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2015—), published online March 25, 2021. doi: https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190201098.013.966; and in John Frow (gen. ed.), The Oxford Encyclopedia of Literary Theory (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2022), 3: 1590-1605
2017 ‘The Historical Books’, in Adam J. Johnson (ed.), T&T Clark Companion to Atonement (London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark): 543-46
2015 ‘Hermeneutics and Interpretation’, in Robert A. Segal and Kocku von Stuckrad (eds.), Vocabulary for the Study of Religion (3 vols; Leiden: Brill): vol 2: 159-66
2012 ‘Hermeneutics’, in Mark J. Boda and J. Gordon McConville (eds.), Dictionary of the Old Testament: Prophets (Downers Grove, IL: IVP): 318-33
2005 ‘Speech-Act Theory’, in Kevin J. Vanhoozer et al (eds.), Dictionary for Theological Interpretation of the Bible (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic & London: SPCK): 763-66
(5) Review Articles
2021 ‘Review Article: An Appreciation of William Brown’s Handbook to Old Testament Exegesis and the Pedagogical Challenge of Teaching the Old Testament’, Theology and Ministry 7: 105-17
2014 ‘Review Article: Using the Bible in Practical Theology (Zoë Bennett)’ [with Zoë Bennett], Theology and Ministry: An Online Journal 3: 7.1-9
2010 ‘Review Article: Christian Theological Interpretation of Scripture Built on the Foundation of the Apostles and the Prophets: The Contribution of R.W.L. Moberly’s Prophecy and Discernment’, Journal of Theological Interpretation 4: 309-18
2008 ‘A Grateful Outsider Reads “Mapping Messianic Jewish Theology”’, Mishkan 57: 45-54
2007 ‘Review Article: Perspectives on Scripture: Its Status and Purpose’, Heythrop Journal 48: 267-74
Also many other academic reviews in Ecclesiology, Evangelical Quarterly, European Journal of Theology, Expository Times, Heythrop Journal, Literature and Theology, Review of Biblical Literature, Society for Old Testament Study Booklist, Studies in Christian Ethics, tbr, Theology, Theology and Ministry: An Online Journal, Vetus Testamentum and other journals.
(6) Booklets and Other
A range of popular and semi-popular writings including:
(6.1) Mediating research to wider audiences
2016 ‘Judges 11.28–40’, in Kate Bruce and Jamie Harrison (eds.), Wrestling with the Word: Preaching Tricky Texts (London: SPCK): 64-70
2014 ‘Becoming a Spiritual Reader of Scripture’, in The Bible and Spirituality (themed issue of the Bible Society’s ‘The Bible in Transmission’): 8-10
2010 ‘Reading the Bible Well: A Question of Virtue? Biblical Narrative and Interpretive Virtue’, The Reader, 107/3: 6-7
2003 ‘Getting Involved: Speech Acts and Biblical Interpretation’, Anvil 20: 25-34
(6.2) Contributions to Grove Books’ Series of booklets (Cambridge):
B = Biblical series; S = Spirituality series
2024 On Generosity. Biblical Reflections on God-Centred Giving (B111)
2021 Spiritual Reading: Bible Reading as a Spiritual Discipline (S158)
2020 A Spiritual Reading of the Book of Jonah: On Being Turned Upside Down (S154)
2020 Hallelujah! How to Praise God from the Hallel Psalms (113–118) (B95)
2015 Fairer Sex: Spiritual Readings of Four OT Passages about Men and Women (B77)
2011 Why Read the Old Testament? (B60)
2010 Reading Isaiah: A Beginner’s Guide (B55)
2006 One God Among Many? (B42)
2001 Gender and the New Testament: Six Proposals for Interpretation (B21)
(6.3) Other short books written for a general audience
2022 Genesis 12–50 (Really Useful Guides; Abingdon: Bible Reading Fellowship)
2008 Living for God (with Melody Briggs; Carlisle: Piquant Editions)
2005 Light to Live By: How to Interpret the Bible (Bletchley: Scripture Union)
(6.4) Creative writing
2021 Not of This Worldview: Poetry for the Kingdom Among Us (Durham: Sacristy Press)
1999 It’s Been a Quiet Week in the Global Village (London: Triangle/SPCK)
Updated: October 2024
