faculty

CV Sarianna Metso

Telephone: 416-946-3243
Fax: 416-978-3305
E-mail: s.metso@utoronto.ca

* On sabbatical 2008-09

Education:

Doct. Theol., University of Helsinki (1997).
Major: Hebrew Bible,
Minors: New Testament and Semitic Languages.
Doctoral thesis: “The Textual Development of the Qumran Community Rule” (published by E.J. Brill, 1997).
Included in doctoral program: Studies in Qumran and Judaica at the University of Göttingen 1992-95 and Kings College, University of London 1993.



Employment:

  • Associate Professor, Departments of Historical Studies and Near and Middle Eastern Civilizations, University of Toronto, July 2005 – present. Cross-appointed with the Centre for the Study of Religion, University of Toronto, July 2005 – present.
  • Associate Professor of Religious Studies, Albion College, Michigan, August 2005 – February 2006 (on leave).
  • Assistant Professor of Religious Studies, Albion College, Michigan, August 2000 – July 2005.
  • Lecturer in Department of Biblical Studies, University of Helsinki, August 1999 – July 2000.

 

HONOURS AND APPOINTMENTS:

HONOURS
Dean’s Excellence Award, University of Toronto, June 2007.
New Teacher of the Year Award, Albion College, April 2001.
Promising Woman Scholar Award, Konkordia Foundation, Finland, March 2000.
Invited “Scholar in Residence,” Dead Sea Scrolls Institute, Trinity Western University, March 1998.

APPOINTMENTS
Book Review Editor of the journal Dead Sea Discoveries, 2008 –.
Member, Advisory Board of Theologisches Wörterbuch zu den Qumrantexten, 2007–.
Vice President of the Oriental Club of Toronto, 2007-08.
Member, Steering Committee of the Seminar on Culture and Religion in Antiquity, University of Toronto, 2006–.

Research INTERESTS:

Hebrew Bible, the Dead Sea Scrolls, Second Temple Judaism, esp. legal traditions, community identity and development, and methodology of historical reconstruction.

SELECTED PUBLICATIONS:

  • “Evidence from the Qumran Scrolls for the Scribal Transmission of Leviticus,” Houses Full of All Good Things: Essays in Memory of Professor Timo Veijola  (eds. J. Pakkala and M. Nissinen; Helsinki and Göttingen: Finnish Exegetical Society and Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2008) 507-519.

    “Shifts in Covenantal Discourse in Second Temple Judaism,” Scripture in Transition: Essays on Septuagint, Hebrew Bible, and Dead Sea Scrolls in Honour of Raija Sollamo (eds. A. Voitila and J. Jokiranta; JSJSup 126; Leiden, Boston: Brill, 2008) 497-512.

  • The Serekh Texts (Companion to the Qumran Scrolls 9; Library of Second Temple Studies 62; London and New York: T&T Clark, 2007).

    “Theological Terminology and Community Structures in the Dead Sea Scrolls,” The Bible and the Dead Sea Scrolls (ed. J. Charlesworth; Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2006) pp. 283-299.

    “Creating Community Halakhah,” Studies in the Hebrew Bible, Qumran, and the Septuagint: Presented to Eugene Ulrich (eds. Peter W. Flint, Emanuel Tov, and James C. VanderKam; Leiden, New York, Köln: Brill, 2005) 279-301.
  • “Whom Does the Term Yahad Identify?,” Biblical Traditions in Transmission: Essays in Honour of Michael A. Knibb (eds. C. Hempel and J. Lieu; JSJSup 110; Leiden: Brill, 2005) pp. 213-235.
  • “Methodological Problems in Reconstructing History from Qumran Rule Texts,” Dead Sea Discoveries 11/3 (2004) 315-335.
  • “The Old Greek Translation of Leviticus,” by Sarianna Metso and Eugene Ulrich, The Book of Leviticus: Composition and Reception (eds. Rolf Rendtdorff and Robert Kugler; The Formation and Interpretation of Old Testament Literature, VTSup 93; Leiden, Boston, Köln: Brill, 2003) 247-268.
  • “Biblical Quotations in the Community Rule,” The Bible as Book: The Hebrew Bible and the Judaean Desert Discoveries (eds. Edward D. Herbert and Emanuel Tov; London, New Castle and Grand Haven: The British Library & Oak Knoll Press in association with The Scriptorium: Center for Christian Antiquities, 2002) 81-92.
  • “Rule of the Community,” Dictionary of New Testament Background (eds. Craig A. Evans and Stanley J. Porter; Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2000) 1018-1024.
  • “4QJoba and 4QJobb,” by Eugene Ulrich and Sarianna Metso, Qumran Cave 4, XI: Psalms to Chronicles (Discoveries in the Judaean Desert XVI;  Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2000) 171-180.
  • “The Redaction of the Community Rule,” Proceedings of the International Congress “The Dead Sea Scrolls: Fifty Years After Their Discovery”(eds. Lawrence H. Schiffman, Emanuel. Tov, and James C. VanderKam; Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society/Shrine of the Book, Israel Museum, 2000) 377-384.
  • “The Relationship between the Damascus Document and the Community Rule,” The Damascus Document: A Centennial of Discovery: Proceedings of the Third International Symposium of the Orion Center for the Study of the Dead Sea Scrolls and Associated Literature, 4-8 February, 1998 (ed. Joseph M. Baumgarten, Esther G. Chazon, Avital Pinnick; STDJ 34; Leiden: Brill, 2000) 85-93.

BOOKS IN PROGRESS

Leviticus (Oxford Hebrew Bible; Oxford University Press).

Wisdom Books (The Bible at Qumran: Text and Interpretation; Brill).

 

RECENT PRESENTATIONS

  • “Patterns of Community Organization in the Dead Sea Scrolls,” Annual Meeting of the Canadian Society of Biblical Studies, June 2008.

    “Refocusing the Rule Texts from Qumran,” Annual Meeting of the Association for Jewish Studies, Toronto, December 2007.

    “A New Approach to Editing Leviticus: The Oxford Hebrew Bible,” Conference on Editorial Problems, University of Toronto, November 2007.

    “Processes of Creating Legal Traditions in the Dead Sea Scrolls and Its Wider Context,” The Dead Sea Scrolls: Texts and Context, University of Birmingham, U.K., October 2007.

    “Methodological Challenges in the Study of the Scrolls,” Dead Sea Scrolls Symposium, Trinity Western University, Langley, BC, October 2007.

     “When the Evidence Does Not Fit: Method, Theory and the Dead Sea Scrolls,” Meeting of the Nordic Network of Qumran Studies, Uppsala University, October 2007.

  • “Rules of the Community and Laws of the Torah,” International Meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature, Vienna, July 2007.

    “Leviticus in the Oxford Hebrew Bible,” International Meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature, Vienna, July 2007.

    “The Place of 1QS in the Legal Corpus of the Essenes,” Meeting of the International Organization for Qumran Studies, Ljubliana, Slovenia, July 2007.

    “Transmission of Legal Traditions in the Essene Communities,” Annual Meeting of the Canadian Society of Biblical Studies, Saskatoon, May 2007.

    “Contributions from the Dead Sea Scrolls for The Oxford Hebrew Bible Edition of Leviticus,” Annual Conference of the Association for Jewish Studies, San Diego, December 2006.

    “The Laws of Leviticus Employed in the Dead Sea Scrolls,” accepted for the Annual Meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature, Washington, D.C., November 2006.

    “Essene Interpretive Traditions of Leviticus,” Annual Meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature, Washington, D.C., November 2006.

    “Curses and Ideology among the Qumran Covenanters,” Canadian Society of Biblical Studies, May 2006.

    “The Textual Traditions of Leviticus and the Oxford Hebrew Bible,” Annual meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature, Philadelphia, November 2005.

    “Prescriptions and Practices: The Case of the Communal Oath,” New Perspectives on Old Texts: The Tenth Annual International Orion Symposium, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, January 2005.