Inaugural Lecture: Mark S. Smith

Mark S. Smith will deliver his inaugural lecture on February 11 at 5:00 p.m. Smith's lecture is titled “‘What Have Canaan and Babylon to Do with Israel?’: The Problem of Ancient Near Eastern Divinity in the Biblical Godhead.”

The lecture will be held in the Cooper Conference Room at the Erdman Center, Princeton Theological Seminary and is free and open to the public. A reception will follow at the Erdman Center.

Mark S. Smith is the Helena Professor of Old Testament Literature and Exegesis at Princeton Theological Seminary. After obtaining master’s degrees from Catholic University of America, Harvard University, and Yale University, he earned his PhD at Yale. Prior to coming to Princeton Seminary, he served as the Skirball Professor of Hebrew Bible and Ancient Near Eastern Studies at New York University, and also taught at Yale and Saint Joseph’s University. A Roman Catholic layman, Smith also served as a visiting professor at the Pontifical Biblical Institute in Rome and at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem.

Smith specializes in Israelite religion and the Hebrew Bible, as well as the literature and religion of Late Bronze Age Ugarit. He is the author of 15 books and more than 100 articles. His current research includes a commentary on the book of Judges co-authored with Elizabeth M. Bloch-Smith, which is to appear in the Hermeneia commentary series.