Lisa Cleath

Dr. Lisa J. Cleath is Assistant Professor of Biblical Studies at George Fox University. Prior to her appointment at GFU, Dr. Cleath was a postdoctoral researcher at the Egyptian Museum in Berlin, as the Aramaic specialist on a team that was digitizing the Elephantine papyri. Dr. Cleath works on ideas about textual authority in the ancient world, in order to explore the origins of the idea of a “Bible”—and thus encourage conscientious usage of the Bible today. She has published on post-colonial framing of Jewish identity in a Persian Egyptian colony—and thereby reflects on her own hybrid, mixed-race identity. She has written on the power of narrative to promote resilience in response to trauma, by relating Ezra-Nehemiah to Indigenous American community experiences. Dr. Cleath seeks to employ analysis of the ancient world and the Bible in a way that will inspire her students and peers to bring justice and transformation to our world.