Education
B.A. Concordia Senior College
M.Div. Concordia Seminary, St. Louis
Th.D. Harvard University
Additional study at University of Michigan, Ecole Biblique,
Jerusalem; Cambridge University; Humboldt Fellow at the
University of Göttingen, Kirchliche Hochschule, Berlin,
and Marburg University.
Biography
Ralph W. Klein is Christ Seminary-Seminex professor of
Old Testament at the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago
(LSTC). A member of the faculty since 1983, Klein served
as Dean from 1988-99 and again in the spring semester of
2005. Prior to joining the Seminary's faculty he was professor
and chair of the department of exegetical theology at Christ
Seminary-Seminex, St. Louis, Mo.; assistant professor at
Concordia Seminary, St. Louis; and an instructor at Concordia
Senior College, Fort Wayne, Ind. In 1998, he was a guest
professor at the University of Chicago Divinity School.
An ordained pastor in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in
America, Klein is committed to the church-at-large. He was
a member of the St. Louis Task Force on Soviet Jewry, the
stewardship committee for the Metropolitan Chicago Synod,
ELCA, and a member of the board of directors and chair of
the Social Policies Committee of Lutheran Family and Children's
Services, St. Louis.
He founded and chaired the Chronicles-Ezra-Nehemiah Group
for the Society of Biblical Literature, and served on the
Commission on Accrediting of the Association of Theological
Schools and as a member and chair of visiting accreditation
teams to other seminaries. He recently directed the LSTC self-study in preparation for the renewal of the seminary's accreditation by the Association of Theological Schools and the North Central Association.
Widely published, Klein has written for the Christian
Century, Concordia Theological Monthly, Currents
in Theology and Mission, Harvard Theological Review,
Interpretation, Journal of Biblical Literature, Journal of Hebrew Scriptures, Word and World and the Zeitschrift fuer die Alttestamentliche Wissenschaft.
He has been editor of Currents
in Theology and Mission since 1974 and is an associate
editor of the Catholic Biblical Quarterly. His
books include Textual Criticism of the Old Testament, Israel
in Exile, a commentary on 1 Samuel in the Word Biblical
Commentary; Ezekiel: the Prophet and his Message; and the
commentary on Ezra and Nehemiah in the New Interpreter's
Bible. He has completed an extensive commentary on 1 Chronicles
for the Hermeneia Commentary Series, (scheduled for publication by Fortress press in 2006) and will complete
an equally comprehensive commentary on 2 Chronicles in the
next few years. Over the years he has published more than
1300 book reviews and short notices. At the annual meeting
of the Society of Biblical Literature in Atlanta, November
22, 2003, he was presented with a Festschrift: The Chronicler
as Theologian: Essays in Honor of Ralph W. Klein.
Klein received the Bachelor of Arts degree from Concordia
Senior College, Fort Wayne, and the Master of Divinity degree
from Concordia Seminary, St. Louis. At Harvard University,
he received the Doctor of Theology degree and was a Teaching
Fellow and Rockefeller Fellow. During recent sabbatical
leaves, Klein has studied at the Albright Institute of Archeological
Research and the Ecole Biblique in Jerusalem, at Cambridge
University in England, and at Philipps University in Marburg,
Germany.
Klein chaired the joint technology committee for the Lutheran
School of Theology and McCormick Theological Seminary and
was the project director for a $300,000 Lilly Foundation
grant to LSTC that has enhanced the use of technology in
the teaching-learning process. He has also developed a web
site on the Old Testament and the Ancient Near East that
provides links to more than 10,000 internet sites and access
to a substantial number of his own articles, including comments
on the Old Testament lessons for every Sunday in the Revised
Common Lectionary. You may visit this site at http://prophetess.lstc.edu/~rklein.
Klein and his wife, Marilyn, are parents to two grown daughters
and grandparents to five grandsons. On almost every Sunday
during the academic year he teaches adult forums in Chicago
area congregations. He also is a tennis player and an avid
golfer.
You can view Klein's curriculum vitae by going
to his website, and clicking on curriculum vitae
under the drop down menu "Documents by RWK." Under
the drop down menu "Old Testament" click on "Commentary
recommendations" to see his advice on which are the
best commentaries on each Old Testament book.
Areas of Expertise
Topics that Dr. Klein is available to address at adult
forums and other congregational events
Archaeology and the Bible (3-4 sessions)
Books of Chronicles (3-4 sessions)
Daniel--Living in an Impossible World (3-4 sessions)
Great Love Stories of the Bible (3-4 sessions)
How the Bible has been Read over the Centuries--and How
it Might be Read Today (3-4 sessions)
Homosexuality and the Bible (2-3 sessions)
Saying Yes to Exile--and No! The Prophet Jeremiah (3-4 sessions)
Messiah in the Old Testament (3-4 sessions)
Old Testament Stories as Seen by Artists (3-4 sessions)
Ten Commandments for Today (2 sessions)
Yahweh Faithful and Free--The Prophet Ezekiel (3-4 sessions)
Recently Published Works
Introduction to Old Testament Readings, Sundays and Seasons, Year A 2008. Minneapolis: Fortress, 2007
"Promise and Fulfillment," pp. 47-63, in Contesting Texts: Jews and Christians in Conversation about the Bible. 2007
"No Easy Answers." Keynote Address at 2007 LSTC Leadership Conference, February 12, 2007
"Response to Donald Hagner." Hein-Fry Lectures at LSTC, March 16, 2007.
"Reading the Bible as Lutherans in the Twenty-First Century." Essay at the New Jersey Synod Ministerium Day, April 18, 2007.
Gary N. Knoppers, ed. Expatriates, Repatriates, and the Question of Zion's Status. A Conversation with Melody D. Knowles by Deirdre N. Fulton, David Janzen, and Ralph W. Klein. 2007
1 Chronicles. Hermeneia Commentary Series. Minneapolis: Fortress. 2006
"The Book of Ezra and Nehemiah" in Old Testament Survey. Nashville: Abingdon. 2006
Participant in discussion of I. Kalimi, An Ancient Israelite Historian: Studies in the Chronicler, his Time, Place and Writing. Journal of Hebrew Scriptures 6. 2006
Studies on the Lessons for the Lenten and Easter Seasons. Select. ELCA Vocation and Education Unit.
"Taking our Ethics from the Bible." The Network Letter 15, 1, 1-6.
Notes on "1 Chronicles" and "2 Chronicles" for the revised version of the HarperCollins Study Bible.
"Seeing the Pentateuch: Reading the Text through the Eyes of Artists." Invited Address, Catholic Biblical Association of America, Loyola University of Chicago, August 6. 2006
Invited Reviews of Melody Knowles, Centrality Practiced: Jerusalem in the Religious Practice of Yehud and the Diaspora in the Persian Period, and Jacob Wright, Rebuilding Identity: The Nehemiah Memoir and its Earliest Readers. Annual Meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature, Washington, DC.
Articles on "Ariel," "Artaxerxes," and "Branch" in The New Interpreter's Dictionary of the Bible A-C. 2006
"The God of the Chronicler." Essays in Honor of Terence E. Fretheim. Word and World Supplement Series.
"Promise and Fulfillment." Old Testament Colloquium
at Catholic Theological Union and Contesting Texts Conference
at LSTC
"The Last Words of David" in Essays in Honor
of Sara Japhet (Jerusalem: Mosad Bialik, 2006)
Notes on "1 and 2 Chronicles" in Renovare
Study Bible 2005
"Africa and Africans in the Book of Chronicles,"
CurTM 32 (2004):274-281.
Notes for "Ezra, Nehemiah, and 1 Esdras" in New
Interpreter's Study Bible 2003
"Narrative Texts: Chronicles, Ezra, and Nehemiah"
in The Blackwell Companion to the Bible 2001
"Isaiah for Advent," CurTM 28 (2001):560-566.
“The Faith and the World.” Currents in
Theology and Mission, 28 (2001) 335-340.
Commentary on “Ezra,” “Nehemiah,”
“1 Esdras.” In The HarperCollins Bible Commentary.
Revised Edition. San Francisco: Harper San Francisco, 2000.
Pp. 338-52 and 698-704.
"The Ironic End of Joash in Chronicles.” In
For a Later Generation. Nickelsburg Volume. Philadelphia:
Trinity Press International, 2000. Pp. 116-127.
"Ezekiel in the Twenty-first Century.” In The
Book of Ezekiel: Theological and Anthropological Perspectives.
Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2000. Pp. 1-21.
"Ezekiel, Book of.” In Eerdmans Dictionary
of the Bible. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2000. Pp. 446-448.
This webpage was last modified on Jan. 29, 2008
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