Email: [email protected]
First Year at Gordon-Conwell: 2011
Biography:
Dr. Catherine McDowell comes to Gordon-Conwell from Wheaton College in Illinois, where she also taught Old Testament. Her teaching experience includes former positions at Gordon-Conwell and Harvard. As a graduate teaching fellow at Harvard, she taught classical Hebrew and Ancient Near Eastern history and archaeology. In addition to teaching at Gordon-Conwell, she currently serves part-time as a professor of Hebrew and Old Testament at Séminaire Théologique Mondelus in Milot, Haiti.
Dr. McDowell has also been active in church ministry, teaching adult education courses in Old Testament, theology, and Bible study methodology for Park Street Church in Boston and at several Presbyterian churches in North Carolina.
She has also worked for Vision New England, both as a conference speaker and as a consultant for leadership training curriculum development. For a number of years, she worked in the field at archaeological digs in Israel.
She is the author of The Image of God in the Garden of Eden: The Creation of Humankind in Gen 2:5-3:24 in Light of the mis pi/pit pi and wpt-r Rituals of Mesopotamia and Ancient Egypt (Eisenbrauns), the study notes for 1-2 Samuel, 1-2 Kings, and 1-2 Chronicles in the ESV Archaeological Study Bible (Crossway, winner of the ECPA Book of the Year Award for Bibles in 2019), as well as several articles in publications such as the Basics of Biblical Hebrew Grammar textbook, the NIV Archaeological Study Bible, the Baker Illustrated Bible Background Commentary, and the Bulletin of the American School of Oriental Research. Her latest book, co-authored with Philip Towner, The Rewards of Learning Greek and Hebrew: Discovering the Richness of the Bible in Its Original Languages (Hendrickson), was published in 2021. She is currently working on a book on idolatry for the Essential Studies in Biblical Theology series published by IVP.
Dr. McDowell has earned a number of honors and awards for her work, including a full tuition scholarship at Harvard University and a $36,000 grant from the Pew Charitable Trust for her PhD studies, a Certificate of Distinction in Teaching undergraduates at Harvard College from the Derek Bok Center for Teaching and Learning, and the Faculty Development Grant from Wheaton College.
Degrees
- BA (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill)
- MA, MAR (Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary)
- MA, PhD (Harvard University)
Featured Publications
Select List of Publications
- “Canaanites and Canaanite Religion,” “Philistines,” and the study notes for 1-2 Kings in Baker Illustrated Bible Background Commentary. Edited by J. Scott Duvall and J. Daniel Hays. Grand Rapids: Baker Books, forthcoming.
- “In the Image of God He Created Them: How Genesis 1:26-27 Defines the Divine-Human Relationship and Why It Matters.” Pages 29-46 in The Image of God in an Image Driven Age: Explorations in Theological Anthropology. Edited by Beth Felker Jones and Jeffrey W. Barbeau. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2016.
- Introductions and study notes for 1-2 Samuel, 1-2 Kings, and 1-2 Chronicles in ESV Archaeology Study Bible. Edited by John D. Currid and David W. Chapman. Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2016.
- The Image of God in the Garden of Eden: The Creation of Humankind in Genesis 2:5-3:24 in Light of the mis pî pit pî and wpt-r Rituals of Mesopotamia and Ancient Egypt. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2015.
- “Idols and Idol Making.” In NIV Archaeological Study Bible: An Illustrated Walk Through Biblical History and Culture. Edited by Walter C. Kaiser, Jr., and Duane Garrett. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2005.
- “Exegetical Insight: A Word is Worth a Thousand Pictures” and “Exegetical Insight: What a Difference a Pronoun Makes” (under the author’s former name, Catherine Beckerleg). In Basics of Biblical Hebrew, by Gary D. Pratico and Miles Van Pelt. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2001.