Sarah Emanuel
Assistant Professor of Theological Studies | Loyola Marymount University
Los Angeles, CA, UNITED STATES
Bellarmine College of Liberal Arts
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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 Religion 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 to 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 is 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 is expected in November 2025 with Fortress Press, and 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 weightlifting, surfing, testing her spice tolerance, or exploring LA with her wife, Zoë, and their many non-human animals.
She can be reached at sarah.emanuel@lmu.edu.
Education (3)
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 (5)
Biblical Studies
New Testament
Christian Origins
First Century Judaism
Bible and Theory
Accomplishments (9)
Louisville Institute Grant for Researchers (professional)
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 (professional)
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 (professional)
2022-01-01
Grant awarded to participate in undergraduate teaching workshops
BCLA College Fellowship (professional)
2022-01-01
Course release for researching and writing Wrestling with Paul: The Apostle, His Readers, and the Fate of the Jews
BCLA Summer Research and Writing Grant (professional)
2021-05-01
Grant awarded for researching and writing Wrestling with Paul: The Apostle, His Readers, and the Fate of the Jews
Global Innovation Grant Winner, Colby College (professional)
$20,000 Grant awarded for archaeological study abroad courses in Bethsaida, Israel (2019-2020)
Society of Biblical Literature Regional Scholar Nominee (professional)
Atlantic Regional Scholar Nominee for paper presented at Atlantic Regional SBL (2017)
Rabbi Dr. Sheldon J. Weltman Prize (professional)
Awarded for best dissertation in Biblical Studies at Drew University (2017)
Maxine Clarke Beach Leadership Prize (professional)
Awarded for teaching at Drew University (2015)
Affiliations (3)
- Society of Biblical Literature
- American Academy of Religion
- Association for Jewish Studies
Languages (3)
- Biblical Hebrew
- Biblical Greek
- Italian
Courses (4)
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.
Paul the Apostle (THST 6016)
This course examines the life, mission, and influence of the apostle Paul, one of Christianity’s most important figures. The goal of this class is to give a snapshot of what biblical scholarship has to say about the apostle Paul, including but not limited to: his historical context, his letters, his intended (and not-intended) audiences, his major ideas, his lasting impact upon issues such as gender, sex, and Jewish-Christian relations, and the changing interpretations and receptions of him.
Articles (7)
Down the Rabbit Hole…To the Humor of Apocalypse and the End of the World, LOL
Apocalypses in Context, Second Edition2025
This chapter explores the use of humor in apocalypses, both ancient and modern.
Gospel of Mark
Judeophobia and the New Testament2025
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 Series2020
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.”
Trauma and Counter-Trauma in the Book of Esther: Reading the Megillah in the Face of the Post-Shoah Sabra
The Bible & Critical Theory2017
We catch glimpses of a culture’s memories of trauma and the survival of these memories in an array of discursive formations, including narrative. By naming, shaping, and giving words to traumatic experience, storytelling becomes an act of processing—an act that seeks to make sense of and survive the many haunting associations and dissociations, which, paradoxically, signify events that exceed categorized signification. Though typically not utilizing trauma theory, scholars indirectly describe the book of Esther as taking part in this process. As Timothy Beal writes, Esther is a book “about living beyond the end,” often doing so by utilizing humour to lampoon the powers that be. However, rather than simply undermine the enemy via subversive jest, the Jews in the book of Esther eventually turn the tables completely as they call for a mass annihilation of Jewish foes. As such, the creation of a new Jewish identity—one that appropriates Amalekite power and force—becomes another glimpse of the culture’s attempt to process, survive, and counter trauma. These tactics become even clearer, however, when cross-read intertextually with the celebration of Purim throughout the Shoah, followed by the solidification of the Israeli Sabra image after World War II. Whereas the celebration of Purim functioned more regularly as hidden resistance, the establishment of the Israeli Sabra created space for both revenge fantasy and revenge reality against any and all lingering “Amaleks.” Though differing in strategy, context, and, arguably, productivity, these responses nevertheless illustrate a range of survival strategies employed in the face of communal suffering. Reading the book of Esther alongside these examples of counter-trauma exposes Esther’s use of humour and appropriation of enemy ideology as articulations of post-traumatic wish-fulfillment. In short, by reading Esther as haunted by the Holocaust and the creation of the post-Shoah Sabra, we may better recognize the range of survival tactics employed in the text.
Letting Judges Breathe: Queer Survivance in the Book of Judges and Gad Beck’s An Underground Life: Memoirs of a Gay Jew in Nazi Berlin
Journal for the Study of the Old Testament2019
Scholars typically describe the book of Judges as encompassing a cyclical transgress–suffer–prosper–transgress–again trope. Although Israelite peace and autonomy are maintained at various moments throughout the text, hardship inevitably ensues, leading exegetes to focus on the Israelites’ repeated demise as opposed to their continual triumphs.
Slips of the Tongue, Slips of the Word: A Poststructuralist Psychoanalytic Reading of John 8:37-47
Biblical Interpretation2018
John 8:37-47 is arguably the most dangerous passage for Jews within the entire New Testament. Repeatedly used to fuel anti-Semitism, it remains haunted by the events of the Holocaust. Its statements about “the Jews” are delivered with all the incomparable authority and divine assurance that the implied author has worked unremittingly to establish for Jesus. However, examining the passage with a poststructuralist psychoanalytic lens, I propose that the reader may not only confront the text’s apparent anti-Jewishness, but may also find that this narrative is far less coherent than it seems. Reading with theorists such as Jacques Lacan and Julia Kristeva, I argue that this textualized Jesus subtly contradicts himself, suggesting a textual unconscious filled with conflict and ambivalence. In fact, by using Genesis 22 as a possible intertext, I demonstrate that it is not the Jews who resemble “their father the devil” so much as the Johannine Jesus himself.
Virgin Heroes and Cross-Dressing Kings: Reading Ambrose’s On Virgins 2.4 as Carnivalesque,” 41-50. Virgin Heroes and Cross-Dressing Kings: Reading Ambrose’s On Virgins 2.4 as Carnivalesque
Studia Patristica2017
Recognizing the fecundity of Ambrose’s ceremonial style, this essay reads his On Virgins 2.4 through a Bakhtinian lens and investigate the various “theatrical” performances of the carnivalesque in his representation of the virgin and her soldiered hero. By producing for readers a moment in which normative hierarchies are reversed via subversive jest, I will suggest that On Virgins 2.4 is infiltrated by topsy-turvy performances that, although comedic, produce for its readers the serious effects of a successful, carnival scene.
