Melissa Ramos, PhD
Associate Professor of Hebrew Bible
Melissa Ramos (PhD, UCLA) is an associate professor of Hebrew Bible at Portland Seminary. She is also an ordained pastor (Minister of Word and Sacrament) in the Presbyterian Church (USA).
Her first book, Ritual in Deuteronomy: The Performance of Doom (Routledge, 2021) explores the ritual world of Deuteronomy and its symbolic forms. The book focuses on the dramatic enactment of the covenant in Deuteronomy 27-30 and studies the role that ritual plays in the literary shape of the book.
Her second book, New Perspectives on Ritual in the Biblical World (Bloomsbury, 2022) is a coedited volume of collected essays that emphasize materiality and embodiment in the study of religious practices focusing especially on the intersection of ritual with gender and the body, the boundaries between official and non-official ritual practices, and the textualization of ritual.
Dr. Ramos is also the co-founder of the site Religion for Her that explores women's interpretation of Scripture. She is also a contributor to Working Preacher and TheTorah.com.
Academic Background
PhD, UCLA; MPhil, Cambridge University; MDiv, Fuller Theological Seminary, BA, University of California, Irvine
Expertise and Research Interests
Select Publications and Presentations
Books
New Perspectives on Ritual in the Biblical World Laura Quick and Melissa Ramos, editors. LHBOTS. London: T & T Clark, 2022.
Ritual in Deuteronomy: The Performance of Doom. Ancient Word Series. Edited by Seth Sanders. New York: Routledge, 2021.
Invited Book Chapters
“Ritual and Covenant in the Ancient Near East and Deuteronomy.” In Deuteronomy. Edited by D. Markl, C. Evans, and K. Baek. Formation and Interpretation of Old Testament Literature (FIOTL). Brill (forthcoming).
“Ritual Pirates and Curse Plunderers: Judean Scribes and the Burglary of Mesopotamian ‘Secret’ Rituals.” In Jehu’s Tribute: What Can Biblical Studies Offer Assyriology? Edited by Jeffrey Cooley and Rannfrid Lesine Thelle (forthcoming 2024).
“Monumentalizing Slaughter: ‘Cutting Covenant’ in the Hebrew Bible and Levantine Inscriptions” in New Perspectives on Ritual in the Biblical World. LHBOTS. Edited by Laura Quick and Melissa Ramos. London: T & T Clark, 2022.
Peer-Reviewed Articles
“The Curses of Deuteronomy 27-28.” TheTorah.com (September 2022).
“The Northwest Semitic Curse Formula: The Sefire Treaty and Deuteronomy 28,” ZAW (2016): 205-220.
Book Reviews
Review of Lies My Preacher Told Me: An Honest Look at the Old Testament by Brent A. Strawn, Interpretation (2022)
Online Articles
“Deuteronomy 30:9-14.” Working Preacher (July 2022).
“Jeremiah 18:1-11.” Working Preacher (September 2022).
“Jeremiah 29:1, 4-7.” Working Preacher (October 2022).
“Hagar: The Immigrant.” religionforher.com (April 2022).
“God as Mother in the Bible.” religionforher.com (March 2022).
“The Proverbs 31 Woman.” religionforher.com (January 2022).
“Recovering the Lost Art of Reading the Biblical Languages.” Presbyterian Outlook (2018).
Awards
2023 Teaching and Learning Workshop - Becoming an Anti-Racist– Wabash Institute
2022 Workshop for Early Career Theological School Faculty – Wabash Institute
2022 Faculty Development Grant (course release for research) – George Fox University
2021 Graduate Faculty Researcher of the Year - George Fox University
2019 Faculty Development Grant (course release for research) – George Fox University
2018 Faculty Development Grant (course release for research) - George Fox University
2015 Dissertation Year Fellowship – University of California, Los Angeles
2013 Foreign Language and Area Studies Award (FLAS) for Modern Hebrew study at the Hebrew University, Israel
2012 First Prize, Essay Contest – Pacific Coast Regional Society for Biblical Literature
2001 Parish Pulpit Preaching Award - Fuller Theological Seminary
Invited Lectures, Conference Presentations, and Podcast Appearances
"Cherubim and the Construction of Gender in Biblical Defenders of Sacred Space" (Syracuse, Italy: Upcoming European Association of Biblical Studies Conference, 2023)
"The Curses of Deuteronomy." Invited guest on the Podcast The Two Testaments (2023)
"Ritual in Deuteronomy 27-30" (George Fox University Spring Faculty Lecture, 2022)
"Ritual in Deuteronomy" (UCLA, Department of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures, 2021)
"Ritual Innovation in Deuteronomy 6" (San Antonio: Society of Biblical Literature Annual Meeting, 2021)
"Ritual in Deuteronomy 27-30" (San Antonio: Society of Biblical Literature Annual Meeting, 2021)
"Making the Cut: Covenant and Iconic Visual Display" (Rome: International Society of Biblical Literature Meeting, 2019)
"Ritual, Memory, and Materiality in the Torah Stones of Deuteronomy" (San Diego: Society of Biblical Literature Annual Meeting, 2019)
"Immigration Studies and the Immigrant in Ugarit and Ancient Israel: (Boston: Society of biblical Literature Annual Meeting, 2017)
""Deuteronomy 27 and Ancient Media: The Torah Stones and the Meaning of Covenant" (San Antonio: Society of Biblical Literature Annual Meeting, 2016)