Elizabeth Backfish
Elizabeth (Libby) H. P. Backfish is Associate Professor of Hebrew Bible at William Jessup University. Dr. Backfish specializes in literary and theological approaches to the text, with Psalms and Judges being two of her current areas of expertise. Her publications include Hebrew Wordplay and Septuagint Translation Technique in the Fourth Book of the Psalter (Bloomsbury, 2019), as well as articles published in the Journal of Biblical Literature, the Journal for the Study of the Old Testament, Christian Scholar’s Review, Biblical Archaeological Review, and more. Dr. Backfish also serves on the board of the Institute for Biblical Research, and she is an ordained pastor (a “theologian in residence”) at Granite Springs Church in Lincoln, California.
Presenter at
Bible & Archaeology Fest XXV, October 8 & 9, 2022
Conventions and Contributions of Hebrew Poetry
Most of us probably have a good idea of what constitutes “poetry” in our native languages. Ancient Hebrew poetry shares many of these conventions, including metaphor, word and sound play, and personification. It also, however, employs poetic devices less commonly seen in non-Semitic language groups, with parallelism being perhaps the most significant example. In this lecture, Dr. Libby Backfish will explore the richness of Hebrew poetry, explaining and illustrating its various poetic devices, and she will show how attending to these features can help us to read the Bible more fully.
