Ph.D., New York University (2008)
Post. Grad. Dip., University of Oxford (2001)
B.A., University of Pennsylvania (1996)
Stephen C. Russell is Associate Professor in the Department of History with expertise in the Hebrew Bible, ancient Near Eastern law, and the politics of the Bible's use in the modern world. He earned his Ph.D. from New York University.
At John Jay College, Professor Russell has taught in the History Department, the Humanities and Justice Studies Program, and the Honors Program, including the following courses:
HIS 106 Historical Perspectives on Justice and Inequality.
HIS 127 Microhistories: A Lens into the Past.
HIS 203 The Ancient World.
HIS 210 Doing History.
HIS 240 Historiography.
HIS 252 Warfare in the Ancient Near East and Egypt.
HIS 282 Selected Topics in History: Law and Society in the Ancient Near East.
HIS 300 Research Methods in History.
HIS 425 Senior Seminar in History.
HIS 489 Honors Track Senior Thesis in History.
HJS 215 Race and Rebellion.
HJS 250 Justice in Western Traditions.
HJS 310 Comparative Perspectives on Justice.
HJS 315 Research Methods in Humanities and Justice Studies.
HJS 380 Topics in Humanities and Justice: Sojourner Truth
HJS 410 Reading Scholarship in Humanities and Justice.
HJS 415 Senior Thesis in Humanities and Justice Studies.
HON 301 Honors Seminar: The Idea of the Common Good Across Disciplines.
Books
A Lesson on Race: The Bible and the Morant Bay Rebellion in the Atlantic World. Histories of Slavery and Its Global Legacies. New York: Cambridge University Press, forthcoming July 2025.
Space, Land, Territory and the Study of the Bible. Leiden: Brill, 2017. Originally published as Brill Research Perspectives in Biblical Interpretation 1.4 (2016). Reissued as Open Access 2023.
The King and the Land: A Geography of Royal Power in the Biblical World. New York: Oxford University Press, 2016. Reissued as Open Access 2025.
Images of Egypt in Early Biblical Literature: Cisjordan-Israelite, Transjordan-Israelite, and Judahite Portrayals. Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft 403. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2009.
Edited Volumes
Mighty Baal: Essays in Honor of Mark S. Smith. Harvard Semitic Studies 66. Leiden: Brill, 2020. (Co-edited with Esther J. Hamori.)
“Crime and Punishment in the Bible and the Near East.” Special issue, Near Eastern Archaeology 78.4 (2015).
Journal Articles
“‘A Chronicle of the Rebellion in Jamaica’: Pseudobiblical Style and Jamaican Proto-Nationalism.” Horizons in Biblical Theology 46 (2024): 25–43.
“Skin for Skin: Biblical Language in Jamaica’s Morant Bay Rebellion.” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 90 (2022): 636–53.
“'Slavery Dies Hard': A Radical Perspective on the Morant Bay Rebellion in Jamaica.” Slavery & Abolition 43 (2022): 185–204.
“The Legal Background of the Theme of Land in the Book of Joshua.” Hebrew Studies 59 (2018): 111–128.
“Biblical Jubilee Laws in Light of Neo-Babylonian and Achaemenid Period Contracts.” Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft 130 (2018): 189–203.
“Enemies, Lands, and Borders in Biblical Crossing Traditions.” Journal of Ancient Near Eastern History 4 (2017): 163–176.
“The Syntax of the Legal Metaphor in Hosea 2:4.” Journal of Semitic Studies 61 (2016): 389–402.
“Gate and Town in 2 Sam 15:1–6: Collective Politics and Absalom’s Strategy.” Journal of Ancient History 3 (2015): 1–20.
“The Hierarchy of Estates in Land and Naboth’s Vineyard.” Journal for the Study of the Old Testament 38 (2014): 453–69.
“Ideologies of Attachment in the Story of Naboth’s Vineyard.” Biblical Theology Bulletin 44 (2014): 29–39.
“Abraham’s Purchase of Ephron’s Land in Anthropological Perspective.” Biblical Interpretation 21 (2013): 153–70.
Book Chapters
“Near Eastern Practice of Law in Deuteronomy.” Pages 18–34 in Don C. Benjamin, ed., The Oxford Handbook of the Book of Deuteronomy. New York: Oxford University Press, 2025.
“The Hidden Politics of Possession and Hereditary Property in Some Hexateuchal Traditions.” Pages 89–109 in Mark Brett and Rachelle Gilmour, eds., Political Theologies in the Hebrew Bible. Journal of Ancient Judaism Supplement Series. Paderborn: Brill, 2023.
“What Has Political Theology Ever Done for Us?” Pages 255–63 in Mark Brett and Rachelle Gilmour, eds., Political Theologies in the Hebrew Bible. Journal of Ancient Judaism Supplement Series. Paderborn: Brill, 2023.
“Spatiality and Territoriality: Power Over Land and Power Over People.” Pages 469–89 in Emanuel Pfoh, ed., The T&T Clark Handbook of Anthropology and the Hebrew Bible. London: Bloomsbury T & T Clark, 2023.
“Monarchy and Law in the Pre-Exilic Period.” Pages 333–352 in Pamela Barmash, ed. The Oxford Handbook of Biblical Law. New York: Oxford University Press, 2019.
“Samuel’s Theophany and the Politics of Religious Dreams.” Pages 109–132 in Esther J. Hamori and Jonathan Stökl, eds., Perchance to Dream: Essays on Dream Divination in Biblical and Other Ancient Near Eastern and Early Jewish Sources. Ancient Near Eastern Monographs 21. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2018.
“Religious Space and Structures.” Pages 356–377 in John Barton, ed., The Hebrew Bible: A Critical Companion. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2016.
“The Structure of Legal Administration in the Moses Story.” Pages 317–329 in Thomas E. Levy, Thomas Schneider, and William H.C. Propp, eds., Israel’s Exodus in Transdisciplinary Perspective: Text, Archaeology, Culture, and Geoscience. Cham, Switzerland: Springer International, 2015.
Bibliographic Surveys
“Temples and Sanctuaries.” In Christopher Matthews, ed., Oxford Bibliographies in Biblical Studies. New York: Oxford University Press, 2017.
“Biblical Law in the Hebrew Bible.” In Christopher Matthews, ed., Oxford Bibliographies in Biblical Studies. New York: Oxford University Press, 2016.
“Exodus as a Theme.” In Naomi Seidman, ed., Oxford Bibliographies in Jewish Studies. New York: Oxford University Press, 2016.
Reviews
Review of Daniel D. Pioske, Memory in a Time of Prose: Studies in Epistemology, Hebrew Scribalism, and the Biblical Past. New York: Oxford University Press, 2018. Journal of Near Eastern Studies 78 (2019): 172–174.
Review of Elaine T. James, Landscapes of the Song of Songs: Poetry and Place. New York: Oxford University Press, 2017. Review of Biblical Literature (2018). <https://www.bookreviews.org/pdf/11758_13117.pdf>
Review of Nili Wazana, All the Boundaries of the Land: The Promised Land in Biblical Thought in Light of the Ancient Near East. Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 2013. Journal of Religion 95 (2015): 389–391.
Review of Jeffrey L. Cooley, Poetic Astronomy in the Ancient Near East: The Reflexes of Celestial Science in Ancient Mesopotamian, Ugaritic, and Israelite Narrative. HACL 5. Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 2013. Review of Biblical Literature (2015). <http://www.bookreviews.org/pdf/9201_10145.pdf>
Review of Anne Marie Kitz, Cursed Are You! The Phenomenology of Cursing in Cuneiform and Hebrew Texts. Winona Lake, Ind: Eisenbrauns, 2014. Review of Biblical Literature (2015). <http://www.bookreviews.org/pdf/9742_10761.pdf>
Review of Thomas Petter, The Land between the Two Rivers: Early Israelite Identities in Transjordan. Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 2014. Journal of Hebrew Scriptures 14 (2014). <http://www.jhsonline.org/reviews/reviews_new/review724.htm>
Review of A. Graem Auld, I & II Samuel. Old Testament Library. Louisville, Ky.: Westminster John Knox Press, 2011. Scottish Journal of Theology 67 (2014): 236–238.
Review of Benjamin D. Sommer, The Bodies of God and the World of Ancient Israel. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009. Scottish Journal of Theology 66 (2013): 483–485.
Review of Koowon Kim, Incubation as a Type-Scene in the Aqhatu, Kirta, and Hannah Stories: A Form-Critical and Narratological Study of KTU 1.14 I–1.15 III, 1.17 I–II, and 1 Samuel 1:1–2:11. VTSup 145. Leiden: Brill, 2011. Journal of Hebrew Scriptures 13 (2013). <http://www.jhsonline.org/reviews/reviews_new/review665.htm>
Review of David Miano, Shadow on the Steps: Time Measurement in Ancient Israel. SBL Resources for Biblical Study 64. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2010. Journal of the American Oriental Society 133 (2013): 30–31.
Review of Yair Lorberbaum, Disempowered King: Monarchy in Classical Jewish Literature. New York: Continuum, 2011. Biblical Interpretation 20 (2012): 489–90.
Stephen Russell's research focusses on the Bible, on the social and legal world that produced it, and on the politics of the Bible's use in the modern world. His first book, Images of Egypt in Early Biblical Literature (de Gruyter, 2009), argues that different communities in ancient Israel and Judah celebrated different traditions of resistance to Egypt’s imperial hegemony. The King and the Land (Oxford University Press, 2016) shows how the monarchies in ancient Israel and Judah negotiated power within strategically important spaces. In Space, Land, Territory and the Study of the Bible (Brill, 2017), Dr. Russell maps eight approaches to the study of space and their implications for reading the Bible. In A Lesson on Race: The Bible and the Morant Bay Rebellion in the Atlantic World (Cambridge, 2025), he uncovers the competing visions for race relations encoded in the biblical slogans that were used to discuss Jamaica's 1865 Morant Bay Rebellion. He has also published articles and book chapters on biblical and ancient Near Eastern law and on Jamaican history.