Hilary Marlow is Vice-Mistress, Postgraduate Tutor, and Director of Studies in Theology at Girton College Cambridge and teaches Hebrew Bible/Old Testament in the Faculty of Divinity, University of Cambridge. Until 2018 she was first, Course Director and then, Senior Researcher at the Faraday Institute, working on a Templeton-funded research project entitled “Science and Scripture in Christianity and Islam”.
Hilary’s on-going academic research focuses on the Bible’s depiction of the interaction between people and the natural world, and the relevance of this in contemporary contexts. She is particularly interested in religious, especially Christian, motivations for environmental concern and the use of the Bible in environmental ethics. Her work includes textual studies on the portrayal of nature, study of creation texts and their interpretation in later Jewish and Christian traditions, ecological hermeneutics, and theological and exegetical study on what it means to be human in the light of current scientific developments. Hilary has recently edited (with Mark Harris) the Oxford Handbook of the Bible and Ecology (OUP 2022) and is now working on a project examining the connection between wisdom and creation in the book of Ben Sira.
Hilary is a committed environmentalist and for many years has been actively involved in the Christian conservation charity A Rocha where she is currently a Trustee. She regularly speaks on her environmental research to academic and non-specialist audiences.
Academic Publications
Academic Publications‘
Tbc “The Hebrew Bible and Ecology” in Understanding the Hebrew Bible: Essays by Members of the Society for Old Testament Study edited by John Barton (Oxford: Oxford University Press) forthcoming
2024 “‘Ay de vosotros que pisoteáis a los pobres de la tierra’: una lectura del libro de Amós desda la ecojusticia” in Biblia y ecología: Nuevas lecturas en un mundo herido. Edited by Carmen Yebra Rovira and Estela Aldave Medrano (Estella, Navarra: Editorial Verbo Divina)
2022 “Creation, Humanity and Hubris in the Hebrew Bible” (Practical Theology 15 no 5, pp 491-503)
2022 The Oxford Handbook of the Bible and Ecology. Edited by Hilary Marlow and Mark Harris (New York: Oxford University Press)
2022 “Reading from the Ground Up: Nature Imagery in the Book of Isaiah” in The Oxford Handbook of the Bible and Ecology. Edited by Hilary Marlow and Mark Harris (New York: Oxford University Press)
2021 Eschatology in Antiquity: Forms and Functions. Edited by Hilary Marlow, Karla Pollmann and Helen Van Noorden (London: Taylor & Francis)
2021 Marlow, Hilary. “’As I Looked’: Visionary Experiences and Conceptions of Place in the Book of Ezekiel” in Eschatology in Antiquity: Forms and Functions. Edited by Hilary Marlow, Karla Pollmann and Helen Van Noorden (London: Taylor & Francis)
2019 Ecology and Theology in the Ancient World: Cross-disciplinary Perspectives. Edited by Ailsa Hunt and Hilary F. Marlow (London: Bloomsbury Academic)
2019 “The Anguish of the Earth: Ecology and Warfare in the First World War and the Bible”, in Ecology and Theology in the Ancient World: Cross-disciplinary Perspectives. Edited by Ailsa Hunt and Hilary F. Marlow (London: Bloomsbury Academic)
2018 The City in the Hebrew Bible: Critical, Literary and Exegetical Approaches. Edited by Hilary F. Marlow and James K. Aitken (London: T & T Clark)
2018 “A Land of Fine Large Cities: Mapping the Landscapes of Deuteronomy”, in The City in the Hebrew Bible: Critical, Literary and Exegetical Approaches. Edited by Hilary F. Marlow and James K. Aitken (London: T & T Clark).
2016 “The Human Condition” in The Hebrew Bible: A Critical Companion. Ed. John Barton (Princeton: Princeton University Press)
2014 “’What am I in a Boundless Creation?’ An Ecological Reading of Sirach 16 & 17” (Biblical Interpretation 22, pp. 34-50)
2013 “The Hills are Alive: The Personification of Nature in the Psalter” in Leshon Limmudim: Essays on the Language and Literature of the Hebrew Bible in honour of A.A. Macintosh. Eds. David Baer and Robert Gordon (London: T & T Clark,)
2013 “Law and the Ruining of the Land: Deuteronomy and Jeremiah in Dialogue” (Political Theology 14, pp. 650-660)
2013 “Ecology, Theology, Society: Physical, Religious and Social Disjuncture in Biblical and Neo-Assyrian Prophetic Texts” in “Thus Speaks Ishtar of Arbela”: Prophecy in Israel, Assyria and Egypt in the Neo-Assyrian Period. Eds. Robert P. Gordon and Hans M. Barstad, (Winona Lake: Eisenbraun)
2012 “Creation Theology” and “Land” in Dictionary of the Old Testament: Prophets. Eds Mark J. Boda and J. Gordon McConville (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press)
2012 “Creation Themes in Job and Amos: An Intertextual Relationship?” in Reading Job Intertextually. Eds. Katharine Dell and William Kynes (London: T & T Clark)
2010 “Justice for Whom? Social and Environmental Ethics and the Hebrew Prophets” in Ethical and Unethical Behaviour in the Old Testament. Ed. Katharine Dell (Edinburgh: T & T Clark)
2009 Biblical Prophets and Contemporary Environmental Ethics: Re-Reading Amos, Hosea and First Isaiah. (Oxford: Oxford University Press)
2008 “The Other Prophet! The Voice of the Earth in the Book of Amos” in Exploring Ecological Hermeneutics. Eds. Norman Habel and Peter Trudinger, (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature).
2007 “The Lament over the River Nile – a Study of Isaiah 19:5-10” (Vetus Testamentum 57 pp. 229-242).
Non-academic publications
2017 Becoming Truly Human: Biblical Perspectives on Humanity (Cambridge: Grove Books)
2009 “Justice for All the Earth: Society, Ecology and the Biblical Prophets” in Creation in Crisis: Christian Perspectives on Sustainability. Ed. Robert White (London: SPCK)
2009 “The Environment” in Votewise. Ed. Rose Cregan (London: SPCK)
2008 The Earth is the Lord’s: A Biblical Response to Environmental Issues (Cambridge: Grove Books)
