Welcome!

From a young age, I’ve been captivated by how people fashion religious worlds with words, how others enter those words and worlds, and the way these words are mediated and materialized.

But that’s way too broad and vague to research. Through accident and aptitude (mostly with old languages), I focused on Hebrew Bible / Old Testament for my PhD in Religion from Duke University. Since 2021, I’ve taught Judaic Studies and Religious Studies at the College of William & Mary.

These days, my work clusters around two areas.

First, I study iconic texts and ritualized writing in Jewish scriptural practice. My dissertation, Writing Esther, unpacks the materiality of the Esther scroll in Jewish life. I show how Jews have used the written artifact to think through pivotal theological questions raised by the Book of Esther—and how midrash, liturgy, and scribal rituals conflate the acts of writing in the scroll with the copying of the scroll. My main advisor was Dr. Laura Lieber, but I am working a great deal with the scholarship of the Society for Comparative Research on Iconic and Performative Texts (SCRIPT). I have presented this research at the Society for Biblical Literature (2021) and the Association for Jewish Studies (2022). Parts of it were published in Hebrew Studies, Postscripts, and Religions.

Second, I also study religion and contemporary calligraphy and lettering arts. I fell into this rich niche through my work with The Saint John’s Bible, which led to my first two books, most recently Planting Letters and Weaving Lines: Calligraphy, the Song of Songs, and The Saint John’s Bible (Liturgical Press, 2022). Since 2021, I have moved into the broader world of contemporary calligraphy and lettering arts, especially Hebrew- and Roman-alphabet works. In 2021, I curated a virtual exhibit, Visual Music: Calligraphy and Sacred Texts for the Henry Luce III Center for the Arts & Religion at Wesley Theological Seminary. Currently I am writing a book about religious themes in the lettering art of Martin Wenham (Cascade Books), as well as a short monograph on religion, language, and contemporary lettering arts for Brill Research Perspectives in Religion and the Arts.  

Some other hats I wear:

  • Content Editor for Scripsit, the journal of the Washington Calligraphers Guild;

  • Editorial board of CrossCurrents;

  • Torah study leader for Temple Sinai (Newport News, VA) and Judea Reform Congregation (Durham, NC);

  • Presenter for Jewish Art Education.

I also love teaching Classical Hebrew. Previously, I co-authored, with J. David Pleins, of Biblical Hebrew Vocabulary by Conceptual Categories: A Student’s Guide to Nouns in the Old Testament (Zondervan, 2017).  

My backstory: I converted to Judaism in 2020. Before that I was Episcopalian and (for a good few years) Roman Catholic.

I did not grow up particularly religious, but spent much of my childhood in a conservative area where religion was very much on display. Quite by accident, I attended the only public school district in the USA which requires a world religions class for high schoolers. I was that dorky teenager who argued about Richard Dawkins’ The God Delusion with friends in high school.

During initial studies in philosophy at Modesto Junior College, I realized I was more interested in how people go about fashioning their truths than in actually discovering The Truth. Reading William James’ The Varieties of Religious Experience showed me that other people asked those same questions.  

Essentially, I’m fascinated by the human side of religion: what people do with religion and what religion does for people.

In 2023 I figured out some gender stuff. It isn’t an explicit part of my writing…. but before 2024 my publications are under my old name, Jonathan.