Sarah Emanuel

Assistant Professor of Theological Studies Loyola Marymount University

  • Los Angeles CA

Bellarmine College of Liberal Arts

Contact

Loyola Marymount University

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Biography

Sarah Emanuel holds a PhD with Distinction in Biblical Studies, with a graduate certificate in Women’s and Gender Studies, from Drew University’s Graduate Division of Religion. She received her M.A. in Religious Studies from Wake Forest University, a graduate certificate in Ancient Jewish-Christian Encounters from Tel Aviv University International, and a B.A. in English and Liberal Studies from the University of Delaware, where she was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa and named a Woman of Promise. Prior to joining the LMU faculty, she was Visiting Assistant Professor of Biblical Studies at Colby College (2018-2020) and Visiting Assistant Professor of New Testament at Oberlin College (2017-2018).

Dr. Emanuel's research explores the ways ancient Jewish and early Christ-centered sources have functioned since their inception, from their ancient contexts of production up through their contemporary contexts of reception. To that end, she implements both traditional historical-critical methodologies and contemporary critical approaches when examining the ancient materials. Much of her work is legible through the lens of literary and cultural studies: She is interested in how the Bible—a collection of literary and cultural artifacts—creates, reflects, responds to, and is consumed by communities of storytellers and story-listeners, and how interpreters might utilize a variety of theories and methods to explore its layered modes of meaning-making.

Dr. Emanuel is on the Board of Directors at Feminist Studies in Religion, Inc., where she is co-chair of the Lab. She is the book conversations editor at Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion and the content area editor of biblical studies and critical theory at Ancient Jew Review. She is on the editorial boards of Biblical Interpretation and Journal of Theological Studies, and is the co-chair of the Hermeneutics of Trauma section at the Society of Biblical Literature.

Her first book, Humor, Resistance, and Jewish Cultural Persistence in the Book of Revelation: Roasting Rome, was published with Cambridge University Press in 2020. Her forthcoming monograph with Fortress Press is titled, Wrestling with Paul: The Apostle, His Readers, and the Fate of the Jews.

When she is not researching or teaching, Dr. Emanuel can be found at the gym, surfing, testing her spice tolerance, and exploring LA with her wife, Zoë, and their many non-human animals.

She can be reached at sarah.emanuel@lmu.edu.

Education

Drew University

Ph.D.

Biblical Studies (Focus: New Testament/Christian Origins), Certificate in Women's and Gender Studies

2017

With Distinction

Wake Forest University

M.A.

Religious Studies

2011

University of Delaware

B.A.

English, Liberal Studies (focus: Religion)

2009

Magna Cum Laude, Phi Beta Kappa, Woman of Promise

Areas of Expertise

Biblical Studies
New Testament
Christian Origins
First Century Judaism
Bible and Theory

Accomplishments

Louisville Institute Grant for Researchers

2024-11-15

$30,000 grant awarded for researching and writing Wrestling with Paul: The Apostle, His Readers, and the Fate of the Jews

Addressing Antisemitism Course Modification Grant

2022-05-01

Grant awarded to modify course on Gender and the Bible to include instances of overlapping gender discrimination and anti-Jewish racism

Wabash Center Lilly Endowment Grant

2022-01-01

Grant awarded to participate in undergraduate teaching workshops

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Affiliations

  • Society of Biblical Literature
  • American Academy of Religion
  • Association for Jewish Studies

Languages

  • Biblical Hebrew
  • Biblical Greek
  • Italian

Courses

New Testament Contexts (THST 1010)

This course introduces students to New Testament texts and contexts. While a primary focus is situating New Testament writings in their own historical settings—a traditional starting point within the field of New Testament Studies—the course also examines how New Testament sources have been analyzed in contexts beyond their own times. Throughout the class, students will learn about the early Jesus movement, the construction of the New Testament canon, the development and trajectory of New Testament Studies as an academic field, and the relationship among text, context, and interpretation.

On the Eighth Day, God Laughed: The Bible and Comedy (THST 3742 / THST 6998)

What does the Bible have to do with comedy? Is it inappropriate to laugh at—or with—biblical texts? Considering the Bible as a collection of creative narrations, this course examines the role of humor within those narrations, particularly as it relates to the development of culture and communal identity. It also considers the role of biblical texts in comedy arts today, as well as within students’ own comic creations.

Gender, Sex, and the Bible (THST 3009 / THST 6998)

This is a course about the Bible and bodies. More specifically, it is about examining the portrayal of gender and gendered bodies in selected texts from the Bible and extra-biblical literature (bodies of literature indeed). Some questions we will ask include: how is gender (re)presented in the biblical canons? What is the relationship between sex, gender, and sexuality in the texts/contexts we are examining? In entertaining these questions, we will engage the interdisciplinary field of gender studies, which includes views to feminist and womanist criticisms, masculinity studies, and queer studies. We will also consider how our readings might impact various communities (i.e., bodies) of storytellers and story-listeners, both in antiquity and today.

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Articles

Down the Rabbit Hole…To the Humor of Apocalypse and the End of the World, LOL

Apocalypses in Context, Second Edition

2025

This chapter explores the use of humor in apocalypses, both ancient and modern.

Gospel of Mark

Judeophobia and the New Testament

2025

Catered to students and public readers, this chapter introduces readers to the relationship between the Gospel of Mark, Judaism, and anti-Judaism.

Grace Be to You in the Presence of the Past: Ghosts, Hauntings, and Traumatic Dissociations in Margaret Atwood’s Alias Grace and the Gospel of John

Gorgias Press Biblical Intersections Series

2020

This essay explores the multiplicity of trauma hauntings, including the affects therein. With a view to contemporary critical lenses such as hauntology, trauma studies, and affect theory, this essay cross-reads John’s Gospel and Alias Grace in order to show that John, like Atwood, offers a haunting representation of the dissociated mind. But this essay also, in doing so, experiences its own performative splits—its own mediations that spotlight the demands of ghosts and, with it, the projections embedded within human narration and interpretation. Readers at times may find themselves asking which interpretations matter most—which analyses are more or less “real.” As Atwood herself heeds, when it comes to truth and reliability, multiplicity abounds, and it is up to us as readers “take [our] pick.”

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