Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.)
Religious Studies (Hebrew Bible/Old Testament)
Yale University
2006
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Faculty
Faculty
John Ahn, M.Div., Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Hebrew Bible
Department/Office
- Biblical Studies, Divinity
School/College
- School of Divinity
Biography
John Ahn, M.Div., Ph.D., is associate professor of Hebrew Bible at the Howard University School of Divinity (HUSD). He is trained in ancient Near Eastern and Religious Studies. He holds the Ph.D. in Religious Studies (Hebrew Bible/Old Testament), Yale University; S.T.M., Yale Divinity School (Class Marshal); M.Div., Princeton Theological Seminary (Seminary Fellow); and B.A., in Linguistics (highest GPA citation) and Religious Studies (with honors) from New York University (magna cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa). He specializes in the historical and social reconstructions of the sixth and fifth centuries BCE with interests to the first century CE. Ahn is classically trained in ANE languages and history, text criticism, literature, and paleoclimatology. He also employs social scientific theories, including cultural memory, trauma, generational consciousness, and forced and return migration studies to better understand the text's original and layered historical, social, literary (re-writing), and religious-cultural traditions of ancient Judah/Israel for ancient and contemporary actualizations (with canonical consciousness) fostering new knowledge.
Ahn was president of the Mid-Atlantic Society of Biblical Literature (SBL) (2021-2022). He also served as the section review leader for Daniel and the Book of the Twelve (Minor Prophets)—NRSV-Updated Edition.
Ahn is a highly acclaimed and recognized scholar in the study of the forced and return migrations periods, more commonly known as the exile and return. Trained under world leading scholars, Ahn continues to demonstrate leadership in (various) academic guilds: founder/chair of the "Return Migrations in Biblical Literature" (SBL International, 2019-present), the founder/chair of the "Exile-Forced Migrations Group" (SBL Annual, 2008-2012), International Meeting (2010-2012), Program Chair of the Hebrew Bible, Southwest SBL (2011-2013), president of the Korean Biblical Colloquium (KBC) (2017-2021), and Writings Section Chair, Mid-Atlantic SBL (2018-2022). Ahn is the editor of the Journal of Black Religious Thought (Brill) and the PI for the Pathways (Lilly) Grant at Howard.
Ahn's monographs (authored and edited) include, Exile as Forced Migrations (de Gruyter, 2010), The Prophets Speak on Forced Migration (SBL Press, 2015), By the Irrigation Canals of Babylon (Bloomsbury, 2012), Thus Says the LORD: Essays in Honor of Robert R. Wilson (T & T Clark, 2009), and Landscapes of Korean and Korean American Biblical Interpretation (SBL Press, 2019). Currently, he is working on several projects of which two are: the Wilderness Wandering Tradition and an edited volume on The Last of the Kings on Forced and Return Migrations: 2 Kings 24-25.
Before his appointment at HUSD, Ahn held faculty appointments in Texas (2006-14) and Connecticut (2002-06).
Ahn has led NGO projects to Africa, India, Ukraine, Siberia (Russia) and spent time in Israel as an archeologist. He has also worked in leadership development at a Global 500 (Austin, TX). Since 1994, he has served congregations in New York, Texas, and Maryland. Ahn is ordained in the Korean Presbyterian Church in America (Abroad), New York Presbytery. He has over thirty years of ministry experience, including four senior pastorships.
He is married with three children. He is a former NCAA athlete (Men's Volleyball).
Education & Expertise
Education
Master of Sacred Theology (S.T.M.)
Hebrew Bible/Old Testament
Yale University
1999
Master of Divinity (M.Div.)
(con. Biblical Studies: Old Testament/Hebrew Bible)
Princeton Theological Seminary
1997
Bachelor of Arts (B.A.)
Religious Studies (honors) & Linguistics (highest GPA), magna cum laude
New York University
1994
Expertise
Neo-Babylonian, Persian, Greco-Persian, Maccabees, Diaspora Literature, Human Forced Migrations, Exile, Return, Wilderness
Academics
Academics
BSOT 201/202 Introduction to Old Testament/Hebrew Bible
BSOT 240 Exile as Forced Migration
BSOT 307 The Book of Job and the Black Experience
BSOT 327 History of Biblical Interpretation
BSOT 370 Biblical/Qumran-Egyptian Aramaic
Research
Research
Specialty
Exile (6th Cen. BCE), Return (5th Cen. BCE), Forced-Return Migrations, Generational Consciousness, Memory, Trauma, HB Textual Criticism, Sociological Approach, Canonical ApproachFunding
PI: Lilly Pathways for Tomorrow Initiative — $1,000,000 (Phase 2) — “The Imaginative Formation of Black Pastors and Lay Leaders” submitted on August 2, 2021/March 1, 2022, Funded June 28, 2022.
PI: Lilly Pathways for Tomorrow Initiative — $50,000 (Phase 1) — “For the Black Soul of America.” Three initiatives: interviews, listening, and data mining in urban and rural contexts of ministry for Black pastors. Submitted March 15, 2021. Funded April 30, 2021.
Facilitator: Wabash Small Grant — $7,500; Peer Mentoring Cluster; Paul Cho—Wesley Seminary, Paul Kim—Methodist Theological Seminary in Ohio, Bo Lim—Seattle Pacific University, Roger Nam—Emory University, “To Complete Our Story: Where Do We Go From Here?” Submitted 2021. Funded 2021-2022.
Wabash Small Grant — $7,500; Peer Mentoring Cluster — (Roger Nam— George Fox University [Facilitator], John Ahn—Howard University, Paul Cho—Wesley Seminary, Bo Lim—Seattle Pacific University, Paul Kim — MTSO), “1903: Returning to the Past, Negotiating the Future.” _Submitted 2017, Funded 2018.
Wabash Small Grant — $7,500; Peer Mentoring Cluster— (Paul Kim-MTSO [Facilitator], John Ahn—Howard University, Paul Cho—Wesley Seminary, Bo Lim—Seattle Pacific University, Roger Nam—George Fox University), “Seen Yet Unseen.” Submitted 2016, Funded 2017-2018.
Lilly Endowment Small Grant —$10,000 Schreiner University (Kerrville, TX) and Austin Seminary (Austin, TX) with Monterey Institute of Technology (Monterrey, Mexico). Lilly Small Grant for teaching globalization, ethics, and migration (USA-Mexico-Germany) to college, seminary, and
congregation, 2008.
Accomplishments
Accomplishments
Bible Translation and Utilization Advisory Committee, National Council of Churches
President, Mid-Atlantic Society of Biblical Literature
Publications and Presentations
Publications and Presentations
Intertextuality and Hosea 3
Applying intertextuality, this article addresses the central problem in Hosea 3. That is, the purchase of the unnamed woman for fifteen shekels, a homer of barley, and a measure of wine, which equates to another fifteen shekels. Strangely, there is no ethical or moral consciousness on the purchasing of another human being by a prophet of God. Commentators have not paid enough attention to this troubling fact.
Book Chapter: 1 Maccabees
1 Maccabees; in The Westminster Study Bible
An essential tool for all religious studies contexts, The Westminster Study Bible includes interpretive materials from over eighty leading biblical experts who, as teachers in a variety of educational settings, are sensitive to how the biblical texts have been, and how readers might hear them now in multiple contexts.
Book Chapter: Forced and Urban Centers of Diaspora Politics
Forced and Urban Centers of Diaspora Politics: Babylon (Ezekiel) and Egypt (Jeremiah)
This edited work is the thirty-fifth volume within Brill’s Journal of Ancient Judaism Supplements series, which focuses on “the history, texts, and religious formations that make up the rich cultural trace extending from the Babylonian Exile through the Babylonian Talmud” (Brill Website). Mark G. Brett and Rachelle Gilmour edited this volume, and both editors contributed a chapter. Contributors are recognized as rising scholars sharing an interest in "political theology and the Hebrew Bible"
Joseph’s Hyper-Assimilation
Joseph’s Hyper-Assimilation: A Fourth Generation’s Hidden Memory of Collapse
This essay, compromised of six parts, discusses: (1) migration and generation consciousness, (2) the framing of Gen 12–50 and Exodus to 2 Kings through the socio-canonical cadre of four generations, (3) the theological nature of the Southern Kingdom’s fall—sin, a first generation exilic construct, (4) the third generation in Jacob, (5) the fourth generation Joseph and its most telling subject matter of a hidden cultural memory, and (6) the conclusion comparing the third and fourth generations respectively, for further scholastic engagement. Seminal subject matters from Elephantine are also discussed.
Pervasiveness of Wisdom in (Con)Texts
Pervasiveness of Wisdom in (Con)Texts in The Oxford Handbook of Wisdom and the Bible
Wisdom as a distinctive category has been challenged. This piece further challenges and opens up the geographical, ideological, and contextual contexts of sapiential texts found in various cultures with written scribal traditions. The Hebrew Bible’s Wisdom texts are primarily studied and situated in the ancient Near East and Egypt. Here, these texts are directedly placed in dialogue with authors and texts of the ancient Far East. For example: Proverbs and the Analects, Job and Buddhism, and Ecclesiastes and Chinese Philosophy
Forced and Return Migrations as the Mitte of the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament
Forced and Return Migrations as the Mitte of the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament
We are living in the "Age of Migration" and migration has a profound impact on all aspects of society and on religious institutions. While there is significant research on migration in the social sciences, little study has been done to understand the impact of migration on Christianity. This book investigates this important topic and the ramifications for Christian theology and ethics.