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Paul Allen

allen-paul.jpg

Lecturer
Religious Studies
Ph.D., Yale University

Email: pjallen@uh.edu | CV


Biographical Summary

My PhD is in OldTestament/Hebrew Bible (Yale, 2018), and my dissertation examined the religio-economic reforms of Nabonidus, King of Babylon (6th century BCE), and how the actions of that king might inform what we should expect from similar reforms within the ancient Near East, particularly those of Josiah, King of Judah (7th century BCE). My future research will expand upon this by constructing a blueprint for the kinds of issues reforming kings faced when they sought to radically reshape the religious and economic contours of their realms. I plan to investigate how the Egyptian Pharaoh Akhenaten (14th century BCE) and his monotheistic reform movement parallels many of the same reforming tendencies of Nabonidus and Josiah.

 

Teaching:

At UH, I teach “Magic, Witchcraft, and the Occult,” which explores the complementary roles of magic, religion, and science in the ancient Mediterranean world. And I also teach “Bible and Western Culture I,” which introduces students to the Old Testament as well as to modern scholarly approaches to interpreting it.