Jacob L. WrightAssociate Professor of Hebrew Bible Jacob L. Wright has received a $50,000 Templeton Foundation grant to underwrite new research and a book award recognizing his most recent scholarship.

The grant from the Templeton Foundation will enable Wright’s participation in a philosophy research group at Jerusalem’s Herzl Institute. Within that group, Wright’s individual project, “To Know in the Biblical Sense,” will examine the highly developed discourse regarding the knowledge of God in the Hebrew Bible, as well as comparative work with the New Testament. Rather than merely undertaking an exegetical or historical analysis, Wright will deal with the subject matter through philosophical, metaphysical, and theological lenses. 

Wright’s 2014 book, David, King of Israel, and Caleb in Biblical Memory (Cambridge University Press), received an honorable mention in the theology and religious studies category at this year’s PROSE Awards, administered by the Association of American Publishers. Recognizing excellence in professional and scholarly publishing, the PROSE Awards acknowledge pioneering research and landmark work in more than 40 categories. Entries are judged by peer publishers and librarians, and awards are given each year at the Professional and Scholarly Publishing Conference in Washington, D.C.

According to a recent CHOICE review, Wright’s award-winning book is written “in engaging, limpid prose occasionally seasoned with humor” and it “succeeds in making painstaking textual inquiry into a stimulating book for general readers and experts alike.” The book compares the function of the David and Caleb accounts in the Bible to the role war memorials play over time.