Joel Marcus LeMon

Joel M. LeMon

Associate Professor of Old Testament

Email: jmlemon@emory.edu

Phone: 404.727.4181

• PhD, Emory University, 2007
• MDiv, Princeton Theological Seminary, 2001
• BA, Shenandoah Conservatory of Music, 1998

The Rev. Dr. Joel M. LeMon, who has been a member of Candler’s faculty since 2007, views music as a tool for engaging with Scripture. His classes combine that artistic passion with an expertise in Old Testament interpretation and ancient Near Eastern history to teach students how to interpret Scripture carefully and faithfully.

LeMon's research focuses on the Psalms, Hebrew and Ugaritic poetry, and ancient Near Eastern history, literature and art. He is the author of Yahweh’s Winged Form in the Psalms: Exploring Congruent Iconography and Texts (Academic Press, 2010) and the co-editor of Method Matters: Essays on the Interpretation of the Hebrew Bible in Honor of David L. Petersen (Society of Biblical Literature, 2009). In addition, he has three books in progress, including one that focuses on violence in the Psalms and ancient Near Eastern iconography, for which he received a grant from the Emory University Research Committee.

  

LeMon is dedicated to the church, academy and the Candler community, evidenced by his frequent speaking engagements at universities, associations and churches, his appointments as chair and co-chair of two subcommittees of the Society of Biblical Literature, and his selection to numerous committees at Candler. He is an elder in the Virginia Conference of the United Methodist Church.

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Joel Marcus LeMon 

Associate Professor of Old Testament 

Candler School of Theology, Emory University, Atlanta, GA 30322 

404-727-4181, jmlemon@emory.edu 

Associate Professor Extraordinary, University of Stellenbosch (since 2012) 

Education
Ph.D. Emory University, May 2007
M.Div. Princeton Theological Seminary, May 2001
 B.A. Shenandoah Conservatory of Music, May 1998

Selected Recent Publications 
“Once More, Yhwh and Company at Kuntillet ʿAjrud.” Co-authored with Brent A. Strawn. Maarav, in press.

Image, Text, Exegesis: Iconographic Interpretation and the Hebrew Bible. Edited with Izaak J. de Hulster. Library of Hebrew Bible / Old Testament Studies 588. London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2015.

 “Psalm 118:10-12 and the Iconography of Disarticulation.” Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft 126 (2014): 59–75

“Masking the Blow: Psalm 81 and the Iconography of Divine Violence,” and “On Wings in a Prayer: Multistable Images for God in Psalm 63” in A Textbook for Iconographic Exegesis. Edited by Brent Strawn and Izaak de Hulster. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, in press.

“Ancient Near Eastern Iconography and the Psalms” in Oxford Handbook of the Psalms. Edited by William P. Brown. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014.

“Yahweh’s Hand and the Iconography of the Blow in Psalm 81:14-16.” Journal of Biblical Literature 132 (2013): 865–82.
“Recasting Genesis in Bronze: Lorenzo Ghiberti’s Visual Exegesis in the Gates of Paradise.” Biblical Interpretation 20 (2012): 126-155.

Yahweh’s Winged Form in the Psalms. Orbis biblicus et orientalis 242. Fribourg: Academic Press; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, 2010.

“Saying Amen to Violent Psalms: Patterns of Prayer, Belief, and Action in the Psalter” in Soundings in Theology of the Psalms. Edited by Rolf Jacobson. Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 2011.

Method Matters: Essays on the Interpretation of the Hebrew Bible in Honor of David L. Petersen. Coedited with Kent H. Richards. Resources for Biblical Study 52. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2009.

“The Dead and Their Images: An Egyptian Etymology for Hebrew ʾôb.” Co-authored with Christopher B. Hays. Journal of Ancient Egyptian Interconnections 1:4 (2009) http://jaei.library.arizona.edu

“‘Everything That Has Breath’: Animal Praise in Psalm 150:6 in the Light of Ancient Near Eastern Iconography.” Co-authored with Brent A. Strawn in Images as Sources / Bilder als Quellen. Edited by Susanne Bickel et al. Orbis biblicus et orientalis, special volume. Fribourg, Switz. and Göttingen: University Press and Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2008.

“The Power of Parallelism in KTU2 1.119: Another ‘Trial Cut.’” Pages 375–394 in Ugarit-Forschungen: Internationales Jahrbuch für die Altertumskunde Syrien-Palästinas 37 (2005).

(abbreviated CV)