The Rev. Dr. Reed Carlson is a Hebrew Bible/Old Testament scholar and an Episcopal priest. Previously, he was Assistant Professor of Biblical Studies at United Lutheran Seminary in Philadelphia where he also served as the Director of Anglican Studies. Dr. Carlson completed a Th.D. in Hebrew Bible/Old Testament at Harvard University and earned degrees from Luther Seminary in Saint Paul and North Central University in Minneapolis. Dr. Carlson has been awarded fellowships from the Fulbright program, the Episcopal Church Foundation, and the Louisville Institute.
An overarching goal of Dr. Carlson’s scholarly work is engaging the fraught hermeneutical issues involved in critically examining ancient and modern accounts of religious experience. He studies broad biblical complexes like spirit possession and apocalyptic expectation, comparing these phenomena in biblical literature with how they are expressed and interpreted in contemporary religious communities. His research develops frameworks whereby scholars and ministers can interact with experiences deemed religious critically and pastorally, and in ways that are not reductionist or hegemonic. In his first book, Unfamiliar Selves in the Hebrew Bible: Possession and Other Spirit Phenomena (De Gruyter, 2022), he compared spirit experiences as depicted in the Hebrew Bible and early Jewish literature with contemporary ethnographic studies of spirit possession in the global south. This monograph was awarded the Manfred Lautenschläger Award for Theological Promise. Dr. Carlson's next book, a co-edited collected volume, is titled Ominous Times: Anticipating Cataclysm in Early Judaism and Christianity (De Gruyter 2025). It focuses on the felt experience of anticipating the apocalypse as reflected in early Jewish and Christian literature.
RESEARCH INTERESTS
· Hebrew Bible / Old Testament Theology
· Biblical Interpretation during the Second Temple period
· Jewish-Christian Relations
SELECT PUBLICATIONS
For Academic Readers
1. (Co-editor with Brigidda E. Bell and Frederick S. Tappenden), Ominous Times: Anticipating Cataclysm in Early Judaism and Christianity. Berlin: De Gruyter. Under contract.
2. Unfamiliar Selves in the Hebrew Bible: Possession and Other Spirit Phenomena. Ekstasis 9. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2022. (See a review panel on Ancient Jew Review: https://www.ancientjewreview.com/ read/2023/4/19/sbl-2022-review-panel-unfamiliar-selves-in-the-hebrew-bible)
3. “Rûaḥ in the Hebrew Bible: A Survey of Past Scholarship.” Currents in Biblical Research 22.2 (2024): 115–132.
4. “Provocateurs, Examiners, and Fools: Divine Opponents to the Aqedah in Early Judaism.” Catholic Biblical Quarterly 83.3 (2021): 373–89.
5. “Hannah at Pentecost: On Recognizing Spirit Phenomena in Early Jewish Literature.” Journal of Pentecostal Theology, 27 (2018): 245–58.
For Ecclesial and General Readers
1. Commentaries for workingpreacher.org https://www.workingpreacher.org/authors/reed-carlson
2. “Are Possession and Other Spirit Phenomena Depicted in the Hebrew Bible?.” The Ancient Near East Today 11.3 (2023). The American Society of Overseas Research. Online: https://www.asor.org/ anetoday/2023/03/possession-spirit-phenomena
3. “The Book of Daniel and the Second Act.” Living Lutheran. Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. March/April (2023). Online: https://www.livinglutheran.org/2023/03/the-book-of-daniel-and-the-second-act/.
Media Appearances
1. “OnScript” Podcast with Matthew Lynch. Online: https://onscript.study/podcast/reed-carlson-possession-and-the-spirit-in-the-hebrew-bible/
MINISTRY EXPERIENCE
Dr. Carlson has over fifteen years of ministry experience, serving congregations and parishes in part-time roles in Minnesota, Massachusetts, and Pennsylvania.
