Professor Emeritus Robin Baker

Professor Emeritus Robin.Baker@winchester.ac.uk

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Biography

Prof. Robin Baker is Emeritus Professor of Old Testament and Ancient Near Eastern Studies. He took his BA at the University of London and his PhD at the University of East Anglia. He has also studied at Stanford University. He is a Fellow of University College London and a Senior Visiting Fellow of the Institute of Balkan Studies in Thessaloniki, Greece.

Publications

Books

Robin's latest monograph Mesopotamian Civilization and the Origins of the New Testament was published by Cambridge University Press in 2022. It illuminates Mesopotamia's contribution to the formation of early Christology.

His monograph Hollow Men, Strange Women: Riddles, Codes and Otherness in the Book of Judges was published by Brill in 2016 in the Biblical Interpretation Series. In this book, Robin examines the use of riddle and parable to convey esoteric meanings in Judges and how Judges explores the question of otherness. Find out more about Hollow Men, Strange Women.

He collaborated with Professor Simo Parpola of the University of Helsinki on Professor Parpola's two-volume Etymological Dictionary of the Sumerian Language, published by Eisenbrauns in 2016.

Peer-reviewed journal articles

Remarks on the Impact and Date of The Gula Hymn of Bullussa-rabi'. NABU - Nouvelles Assyriologiques Brèves et Utilitaires (2022/3, 122), 253-255
'A Dream Carries Much Implication': The Midianite’s Dream (Judges VII), Its Role and Meanings", Vetus Testamentum 68 (2018) 1-29.
'A Mother's Refrain: Judges 5:28-30 in Cultural Context', Vetus Testamentum 67 (2017) 505-518
'Double Trouble: Counting the Cost of Jephthah', Journal of Biblical Literature 137 (2018) 29-50
'Jeremiah and the Balag-Lament? Jeremiah 8:18-23', Journal of Biblical Literature 138 (2019): 587-604.

Book chapters

In press: “Mother’s Little Helper: Micah and His Big Idea,” in Characters and Characterization in the Book of Judges, ed. Benjamin Johnson and Keith Bodner, Library of Hebrew Bible/Old Testament Series (London: T&T Clark).

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Research interests

Robin's primary research is in the Bible and the religious environment and legacy of the Ancient Near East. His focus is particularly on the relationship between the Bible and Assyrian and Babylonian beliefs and cultic practice. His work explores thematic, linguistic and rhetorical reflections of Mesopotamian literature in the Bible. He is also concerned with the way Hebrew writers encoded information through literary structure and with the degree to which the Hebrew Bible should be understood as an esoteric text. His paper 'Jeremiah and the Balag-Lament?' (Journal of Biblical Literature), analyses a Babylonian loanword embedded in Jeremiah 8 and investigates the esoteric qualities of the text in which it is set.

More broadly, Robin is concerned with Biblical Studies and has interests in the reception and interpretation of the Bible in the Early Church especially as articulated in patristic writings, reflections of Mesopotamian religious concepts in Christian theology, and in the role religion plays in sustaining notions of identity among ethnic minorities.

Robin welcomes enquiries about research supervision; he can supervise research on the Bible, Assyriology, Orthodox theology, and Byzantine cult and culture.