Email: kristian_heal@byu.edu
Phone: 801.422.9229
Kristian S. Heal is a Research Fellow at the Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship. He received a BA in Jewish History and Hebrew from University College London, an MSt in Syriac studies from the University of Oxford, and a PhD in Theology from the University of Birmingham. His work has been published by Brill (Leiden), The Catholic University of America Press, Eerdmans, Geuthner (Paris), Gorgias Press, Oxford University Press, Peeters (Leuven), Routledge, and Wiley-Blackwell and appeared in Apocrypha, BYU Studies Quarterly, Catholic Biblical Quarterly, Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies, and the Journal of the Canadian Society of Syriac Studies. He served as the Director of BYU’s Center for the Preservation of Ancient Religious Texts from 2004-2016, and editor of BYU’s Eastern Christian Texts Series from 2002-2018. He is at work on a two-volume study of the story of the Old Testament Patriarch Joseph in the Syriac tradition (under contract with Brill, Leiden).
For further information, see byu.academia.edu/KristianHeal
Education
2008 Ph.D. in Theology, University of Birmingham
Thesis: “Tradition and Transformation: Genesis 37 & 39 in Early Syriac Sources.”
1997 MSt in Syriac Studies, The University of Oxford
1996 B.A. in Jewish History, University College, London
Selected Publications
BOOKS
Clavis to the Metrical Homilies of Narsai (Peeters, 2021)
Narsai: Rethinking his Work and his World (Mohr Siebeck, 2020)
Literature, Rhetoric, and Exegesis in Syriac Verse (Peeters, 2017)
Breaking the Mind: New Studies in the Syriac Book of Steps (The Catholic University of American Press, 2014)
Foundations for Syriac Lexicography IV: Colloquia of the International Syriac Language Project (Gorgias Press, 2014)
BOOK CHAPTERS AND ARTICLES
“Syriac Studies in the Contemporary Academy: Some Reflections.” Pages 279-286 in Syriac Christian Culture: Beginnings to Renaissance, edited by Aaron Butts and Robin Darling Young. Washington D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2021.
“New Sources for the Armenian Commentary on Genesis Attributed to Ephrem.” Pages 522-532 in The Embroidered Bible: Studies in Biblical Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha in Honour of Michael E. Stone (Studia in Veteris Testamenti Pseudepigrapha) edited by Lorenzo DiTommaso, Matthias Henze, and William Adler. Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2018.
“Notes on the History of Joseph (CAVT 113, 114) and the Death of Joseph (CAVT 116, 117).” Apocrypha 28 (2017): 233-237.
“Catalogues and the Poetics of Syriac Manuscript Cultures,” Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies 20 (2017): 375-417.
“Patristic Writings in Early Mormon Periodicals,” in Approaching Antiquity: Joseph Smith’s Study of the Ancient World, eds. Lincoln Blumell, Matthew Grey & Andrew Hedges (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, 2015) 407-24.
“Corpora, eLibraries and Databases: Locating Syriac Studies in the 21st Century,” Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies 15.1 (2012): 65-78.
“A Note on Jacob of Sarug’s Memre on Joseph.” Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies 14.2 (2011): 215-223.
“Joseph as a Type of Christ in the Syriac Tradition,” BYU Studies Quarterly 41, no. 1 (2002): 29-49.
BYU Church History Symposium
NEWS
Interfaith Relations Strengthened by BYU Records Preservation (Ensign)
BYU, Vatican Library preserve manuscripts (Church News)
Scholar’s Corner: The fate of Potiphar’s wife (Deseret News)
Vatican lets BYU publish old texts (Deseret News)
Preserving the Past (Daily Herald)
Brigham Young University Digitizes Syriac Texts from Vatican (Zinda Magazine)