Episode 83: Isaac W. Oliver, Ph.D.

Isaac W. Oliver earned his Ph.D. at the Department of Near Eastern Studies at the University of Michigan in 2012. He has also studied at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in France, Argentina, and Austria. Isaac speaks English, French, Portuguese, Spanish and Modern Hebrew; he is a citizen of the United States and Brazil. He has taught courses on the New Testament, the historical Jesus, and biblical Hebrew at the University of Michigan and Andrews University. At Bradley University, he teaches courses on the New Testament, the Hebrew Bible, Jewish-Christian relations and on other religions. Isaac was raised a Christian, converted to Judaism and is married to a Christian.

Isaac is interested in the exploration of Jewish-Christian relations both in antiquity and the modern period, reading the New Testament and other early Christian writings with their Jewish matrix and as to Jewish literature, Second Temple Judaism, and rabbinic writings. His dissertation, "Torah Praxis after 70 CE: Reading Matthew and Luke-Acts as Jewish Texts," focuses on the question of Sabbath keeping, kashrut (dietary laws), and circumcision in the gospels of Matthew and Luke as well as the Acts of the Apostles. Isaac is the associated editor of the Reviews of the Enoch Seminar, a digital book review service of the Enoch Seminary Online which is committed to the publication of book reviews on Jews and Christians in Antiquity. He is the secretary of the Enoch Graduate Seminar, a biannual conference on Second Temple Judaism and Christian origins.