Dr Lindsey Arielle Davidson is a lecturer in Jewish Studies in the Department of Religion and Theology, School of Humanities, starting at Bristol in 2018.

Dr Davidson is an ancient historian and philologist of ancient Judaism. She works mainly on Greco-Roman Judaism, the Dead Sea Scrolls, scribal culture, and the Septuagint. She teaches Jewish studies (ancient and modern) and Biblical Hebrew. She is interested in the digital humanities and artificial intelligence.

@hebraicaveritas

Office: Room 1.05, 3 Woodland Road, Department of Religion and Theology, Bristol BS8 1TB

Tel: +44 (0)117 455 2046

(formerly Lindsey Arielle Askin)

Research areas

• History of Greco-Roman Judaism (331 BCE to 200 CE)
• Scribal culture in Jewish antiquity
• Hebrew language and philology (Classical Biblical Hebrew and Late Biblical Hebrew)
• Textual history (textual criticism) of the Hebrew Bible, Septuagint (LXX), and related Jewish texts
• Wisdom of Ben Sira
• Dead Sea Scrolls
• Aramaic, Syriac
• Digital and AI ethics, responsible AI use

Dr Davidson's research interests revolve around ancient history, scribal culture, and language in Jewish antiquity, most of all in the Greco-Roman period stretching 331 BCE to 200 CE in West Asia and the Mediterranean. This central focus on Jewish scribes and language involves areas of history, literacy and education, wisdom, quotation, epigraphy, papyrology, translation, multilingualism, and language change. She is also interested in historical and intellectual questions that were important enough for ancient Jews to write about, especially: theology, politics, economics, health, war, and ethics. 

Current research projects are under "Projects." Publications are under "Research Outputs."

Recent events organised: In 2023 she was a lead organiser for an IGRCT- and ICS-funded conference, Alpha, Aleph and AI, together with ECRs in Classics and Ancient History (Benjamin Folit-Weinberg, Maiken Mosleth-King and Martina Delucchi). YouTube videos of many of this conference's fascinating papers can be viewed here.

Personal website: "The Biblical Toolkit" collates databases and resources for biblical and early Jewish and Christian studies, especially geared for remote work, teaching, and research: https://biblicaltoolkit.wordpress.com/.

Teaching and Supervising

Undergraduate: Dead Sea Scrolls, Greco-Roman Judaism, and introductory Biblical Hebrew language. She also teaches general Jewish studies at the introductory level within various mandatory units, including not just ancient Judaism and biblical studies but also Jewish responses to the Shoah/Holocaust, antisemitism studies, and the Arab-Israel conflict. She contributes to much of the teaching in core mandatory units across the Religion and Theology programme.

Postgraduate: Normally open to receiving new queries for MPhil and PhD students within her areas of research interest in ancient Judaism.

Highlighted roles (more under Activities)

Secretary of the British and Irish Association for Jewish Studies (2023 - present), previously Treasurer (2020-23)

Co-Director of Second Temple Early Career Academy (2022 - present), previously co-steer (2020-22)

Member of Turing AI for Arts Steering Group and affiliate of Turing Humanities and Data Science Special Interest Group (The Alan Turing Institute, London)

Editorial board member, Journal of Theological Studies

Background

Past academic roles prior to Bristol:

• Honorary research associate, University of Exeter (2017-18)
• Editorial assistant, Journal of Theological Studies (2016-18)
• Visiting postdoctoral Polonsky fellow, Oxford Centre for Hebrew & Jewish Studies, University of Oxford (spring 2016)
• Supervisor (tutorial teaching), Hebrew and Old Testament papers, University of Cambridge (2015-17)

Education:

• PhD in Divinity, University of Cambridge (Queens' College, 2012-16), supervisor: Professor James K. Aitken (z"l)
• MA in Biblical Studies, Durham University (Hild-Bede, 2011-12), supervisor: Professor Robert (C.T.R.) Hayward
• PG Cert in Theory of Education, Durham University (Hild-Bede, 2010-11), Religious Education at secondary level
• MA Honours (undergraduate) in Divinity, University of Edinburgh (2006-10)
• Originally from Connecticut and Massachusetts, USA