Sheffield Institute for Interdisciplinary Biblical Studies (SIIBS) Launch

Professor Francesca Stavrakopoulou is Professor of Hebrew Bible and Ancient Religion in the University of Exeter's Department of Theology and Religion. She is a well known media figure and has presented her own three part series for the BBC The Bible's Buried Secrets and makes regular appearances on BBC1's debate shows The Big Questions and Sunday Morning Live. Here she discusses her experiences of studying theology, finding links between the ancient and modern worlds and why you don't have to be religious to find biblical studies interesting!

Professor James Crossley is a member of SIIBS and Professor of Bible, Culture and Politics at the University of Sheffield. His new book Jesus and the Chaos of History has just been published by Oxford University Press. Here he discusses why Bible and Theological studies are an inherent part of University learning and why by their very nature require inter-disciplinary learning.

Dr Joanna Stiebert is Associate Professor of Biblical Studies at the University of Leeds and member of SIIBS. Her research is inherently interdisciplinary, working in fields of gender studies, literature, history and ancient language. Dr Stiebert has written on father-daughter relations in the Hebrew Bible; constructions of honour and shame, and reading Hebrew Bible texts in the light of the HIV/AIDS pandemic. Here she discusses her current research topic on how incest is portrayed in the Hebrew Bible compared to how it is viewed by society today.