Madadh Richey
Expertise
Madadh Richey studies the Hebrew Bible and the religion, literature, and history of the Late Bronze and Iron Age Levant with a particular emphasis on ancient inscriptions and material culture. She teaches courses on the Bible, ancient Hebrew and related languages (Aramaic, Phoenician, Ugaritic), myth and magic in the ancient Middle East, and the dialogue between critical theory and ancient studies.Profile
Please visit my new faculty profile page.
Madadh Richey is Assistant Professor of Hebrew Bible in the Department of Near Eastern and Judaic Studies. After receiving her Ph.D. in 2019 from the University of Chicago's Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, she taught at the University of Chicago and Princeton University. Madadh studies discourses of myth, magic, and religion within and around the Hebrew Bible and ancient Middle Eastern sources of the first millennium B.C.E. Her current book project, Visions of Gods and Monsters, explores religious and social functions of divine-combat images in visual art of the Levant and Mesopotamia during the Iron Age (ca. 1175–550 BCE). She is engaged in literary and cultural theoretical approaches to ancient Middle Eastern material—both written and visual artistic—and pursues connections between queer theory and ancient Middle Eastern studies. In this area, she is at work on queer and horror aspects of demons and other monstrous figures who appear in the Hebrew Bible and related sources.
Madadh is an epigrapher of late-second- and first-millennium B.C.E. Northwest Semitic languages and publishes newly discovered and recently rediscovered inscriptions in Hebrew, Ugaritic, Phoenician and Punic, and several dialects of Aramaic. She is interested in the long linguistic and manuscript histories of Hebrew and Aramaic texts, as well as in the contexts, methods, and presuppositions of Orientalist and “philological” scholarship on such texts.
Courses Taught
| NEJS | 122a | Magic and Witchcraft in the Ancient Near East |
Scholarship
Richey, Madadh / Vanderhooft, David S. / Lipschits, Oded. "Private Babylonian Period Stamp Impressions." Ramat Raḥel VI: Pottery Assemblage and Stamp Impressions from the Babylonian and Early Persian Periods. Ed. Lipschits, Oded et al.. University Park: Eisenbrauns, 2021. 81-95.
Richey, Madadh. "Goliath among the Giants: Monster Decapitation and Capital Display in 1 Samuel 17 and Beyond." Journal for the Study of the Old Testament 45. 3 (2021): 336-356.
Richey, Madadh. "The Media and Materiality of Southern Levantine Inscriptions: Production and Reception Contexts." Scribes and Scribalism. Ed. Leuchter, Mark. London: T&T Clark, 2021. 29-39.
Richey, Madadh. "The Mesopotamian Demon Lamaštu and the Monstrosity of Gender Transgression." Religion, Culture, and the Monstrous: Of Gods and Monsters. Ed. Laycock, Joseph / Mikles, Natasha. Lanham: Lexington, 2021. 145-156.
Pardee, Dennis / Richey, Madadh. "The Personal Name in Ugaritic Script pǵm⸢w⸣ (RS 10.052 iv 1) = Luwian piḫamuwa." Journal of Cuneiform Studies 72. (2020): 159-165.
Richey, Madadh. "A Figurine with a Possible Early Aramaic Inscription." Tel Aviv 47. 2 (2020): 234-242.
Richey, Madadh. "The Image of the Dragon in RS 16.266 (= KTU1–3 1.83): Ugaritic √trp and its Syriac, Jewish Babylonian Aramaic, and Mandaic Cognates.." Journal of the American Oriental Society 140. 2 (2020): 381-394.
Richey, Madadh. "The Verb *√l(-)ð “to remove” in Early Aramaic Curses and the Evolution of Aramaic Interdental Orthography and Phonology.." Journal of Semitic Studies 65. 1 (2020): 11-34.
DeGrado, Jessie / Richey, Madadh. "The Aramaic Inscription of the Ashmolean Museum Pazuzu Statuette and Ancient Middle Eastern Magic." Semitica et classica 12. (2019): 17-64.
Pardee, Dennis / Richey, Madadh. "Le texte ougaritique RS 16.266 : vue d’ensemble." Ugarit-Forschungen 50. (2019): 313-358.
Richey, Madadh / Vanderhooft, David S. / Lipschits, Oded. "Two Private Babylonian-Period Stamp Impressions from Ramat Raḥel." Maarav 23. 2 (2019): 289-306.
Richey, Madadh. "The Alphabet and its Legacy." The Oxford Handbook of the Phoenician and Punic Mediterranean. Ed. López-Ruiz, Carolina / Doak, Brian. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019. 241-256.
Richey, Madadh. "The Thunder of the Prophets: Elijah and Elisha’s גה''ר (1 Kgs 18:42; 2 Kgs 4:34–35)." Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft 131. 2 (2019): 235-243.
Richey, Madadh. "[Phoenician and Punic] Inscriptions." The Oxford Handbook of the Phoenician and Punic Mediterranean. Ed. López-Ruiz, Carolina / Doak, Brian. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019. 223-240.
Vanderhooft, David S. / Richey, Madadh / Lipschits, Oded. "A New Type of Yehud Stamp Impression — yhwd / gdlyh.." Israel Exploration Journal 69. 1 (2019): 54-59.
Richey, Madadh. "Ugaritic Monsters I: The ˁatūku “Bound One” and its Sumerian Parallels." Ugarit-Forschungen 49. (2018): 333-365.
DeGrado, Jessie / Richey, Madadh. "An Aramaic-Inscribed Lamaštu Amulet from Zincirli." Bulletin of ASOR 377. (2017): 107-133.
Richey, Madadh. "A Phoenician-Inscribed Bronze Basin, Allegedly from Cumae." Semitica 59. (2017): 219-239.
Richey, Madadh. "The Dwelling of ˀIlu in Baˁlu and ˀAqhatu.." Journal of Ancient Near Eastern Religions 17. 2 (2017): 149-185.
Richey, Madadh. "The Use of Greek at Qumran: Manuscript and Epigraphic Evidence for a Marginalized Language." Dead Sea Discoveries 19. 2 (2012): 177-197.