About

Christopher B. Hays is D. Wilson Moore Professor of Old Testament and Ancient Near Eastern Studies and a Research Associate of the University of Pretoria, South Africa. He will be the U.S. State Department Educational and Cultural Affairs Annual Professor at the Albright Institute of Archaeological Research in Jerusalem for 2022-23, and he served as President of the Pacific Coast Region of Society of Biblical Literature in 2017-18.

Hays is the author of Hidden Riches: A Textbook for the Comparative Study of the Old Testament and the Ancient Near East (Westminster John Knox, 2014), The Origins of Isaiah 24-27 (Cambridge Univ. Press, 2019), and Death in the Iron Age II and in First Isaiah (Forschungen zum Alten Testament 79; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2011). The latter won the Manfred Lautenschlaeger Award for Theological Promise in 2013.

Hays has written the Isaiah commentary in the New Oxford Bible Commentary, and is working on the Isaiah commentary in the Old Testament Library series, having translated the book for the Common English Bible.

Hays teaches courses in Old Testament and directs the master’s program in Ancient Near Eastern Studies in the School of Theology. He has participated in archaeological research in Israel and conducts study trips there. His languages include Hebrew, Akkadian, Ugaritic, Aramaic, Syriac, Middle and Late Egyptian, Demotic, Greek, and Latin.