Professor David Clines awarded British Academy Medal

Johnian Professor David Clines, Emeritus Professor of Biblical Studies at the University of Sheffield, has been awarded the Burkitt Medal for Biblical Studies by the British Academy.

Professor David Clines, who read Oriental Studies (Aramaic and Hebrew) at St John’s in 1961, was awarded the Burkitt Medal for his significant contribution to the study of the Hebrew Bible and Hebrew lexicography. The Burkitt Medal was founded by Professor Francis Burkitt, who had bronze medals struck in 1923 to be presented to scholars in recognition of special services to Biblical studies. After his death in 1935, the medals were given the name Burkitt Medals, and the prize is awarded for work on Hebrew Bible Studies and New Testament Studies on an alternate basis.

Professor Clines was appointed to the Department of Biblical Studies at the University of Sheffield in 1964, and was Head of the Department in 1994-2001. His specialism has always been the Hebrew Bible, and his current research interests are Hebrew lexicology and the detection and exposure of ideology in the Bible. He was President of the British and Irish Society for Old Testament Study in 1996 and President of the Society of Biblical Literature in 2009, and has been Director and Publisher of Sheffield Phoenix Press since 2004. His publications include What Does Eve Do to Help? (1990), Interested Parties: The Ideology of Writers and Readers of the Old Testament (1995), and The Dictionary of Classical Hebrew, 8 vols. (1993–2011).

Seventeen medals and prizes were awarded by the British Academy, formally celebrated at the annual British Academy awards ceremony on 29 September. Prizes included the Leverhulme Medal and Prize for Humanties and Social Sciences, which was awarded to Professor Sir Richard J Evans FBA (University of Cambridge), the Nayef Al-Rodhan Prize for Transcultural Understanding, presented to by Neil MacGregor Hon FBA (British Museum), and the John Coles Medal for Landscape Archaeology, awarded to Dr David Hall (University of Exeter).

For a full list of prize and medal winners, see the article on the British Academy website.