Prof. Theodore J. Lewis is the Blum-Iwry Professor of Near Eastern Studies at Johns Hopkins University. He holds a Ph.D. from Harvard University, and his research focuses on the religions of ancient Israel and Syria. He is the author of The Origin and Character of God: Ancient Israelite Religion through the Lens of Divinity (Oxford University Press, 2020, 2023) which received awards from the American Society of Overseas Research, the American Academy of Religion, and the Biblical Archaeology Society, Cults of the Dead in Ancient Israel and Ugarit, and the co-author of Ugaritic Narrative Poetry. Lewis is General Editor of the multi-volume series Writings from the Ancient World (published by SBL Press) and past editor of Near Eastern Archaeology (for the American Society of Overseas Research), Hebrew Annual Review and Text, Artifact, and Image: Revealing Ancient Israelite Religion (Brown Judaic Studies). His research has been awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship, and his teaching has won him the Excellence in Faculty Graduate Teaching and Mentoring Award from Johns Hopkins Krieger School of Arts and Sciences.