Academic Bio
Charles is a PhD Candidate in Hebrew Bible and the Ancient Near East. His dissertation, "Punishment in the Pentateuchal Priestly Literature," treats the religious and social reasons for sanctions in the two primary layers of these writings, P and H, using theoretical insights on punishment from social theorists like Durkheim and Foucault. He explores the specific language and ritual of religious sanction with an eye to explaining how it fits into and reinforces the theological and literary project of the ancient writers, using cognitive linguistics to best elucidate the semantics of punishment and other negative evaluations. His work combines philology, source criticism, religious, ritual, and social theories, and literary readings to explain biblical and ancient Near Eastern texts.