Dustin Nash
Education
- Ph.D. and M.A., Cornell University
- M.T.S., Harvard Divinity School
- Non-Degree Visiting Graduate Student, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
- B.A., Luther College
Teaching Interests
Students carry assumptions about the content of religion courses that differ from those they bring to other classes. As a teacher, I believe that disassembling and examining these assumptions are what make studying religion a rewarding and vital component of the liberal arts. In the process, students develop skills needed for critical analysis and reasoned argumentation, but there are deeper benefits to studying religion as well. Learning about religious traditions also trains students to recognize the diverse maps of meaning that humans construct and maintain in order to make the cosmos knowable. This prepares them to engage with a complex globalized world with greater nuance and understanding.
At Muhlenberg, I teach courses that serve both the Department of Religion Studies and the Jewish Studies program. As a guiding principle, I allow my research to permeate and direct my teaching in order to make my students participants in the scholarly process. I do this at every level of my courses, whether through reading the Hebrew Bible backwards to reveal signs of the text’s scribal formation, or examining photos of exhibits at the Creation Museum as an exploration of the ways we make and support claims as writers.
Research and Scholarship
My research straddles disciplinary boundaries by exploring the nexus between religion, politics, memory, and identity in ancient Israel and the Near East. My current book project reflects my interest in these areas by offering a new interpretation of the origin and development of the Bible’s representation of the Israelite tribes as “brothers” and its impact on the development of early Jewish identity. Bringing my interests forward in time, I utilize the same theoretical and methodological “tool box” to examine the construction of contemporary Young Earth Creationist and Evangelical Christian identities rooted in the memory of the biblical “past.”
- FYS: Proving the Unprovable
- Hebrew Bible
- It's the End of the World
- Judaisms
- Myth, Religion, and Creation
- Spring 2019 Bridge Builder Award, Academic Resource Center, Muhlenberg College
- Fall 2018 Bridge Builder Award, Academic Resource Center, Muhlenberg College
Recent Publications
- “Does a Magic Still Dwell in Comparing the Tribes of Israel and Mari?” Pages 192-209 In Jehu’s Tribute: What Can Biblical Studies Offer Assyriology? Edited by Rannfrid I. Lasine Thelle and Jeff L. Cooley. Explorations in Ancient Near Eastern Civilizations 9. Edited by Grant Frame, Brent A. Strawn, and Niek Veldhuis. University Park, PA: Eisenbrauns, 2025.
- “Assyriology and the Allosaurus: Sources, Symbols, and Memory at the Creation Museum and Ark Encounter.” Pages 303-327 in Uses and Misuses of Ancient Mediterranean Sources. Edited by Jennifer Singletary and Chiara Meccariello. SERAPHIM 12. Edited by Peter Gemeinhardt et al. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2022.
- “Fossilized Jews and Witnessing Dinosaurs at the Creation Museum: Public Remembering and Forgetting at a Young Earth Creationist ‘Memory Place.’” Studies in Christian-Jewish Relations 14/1 (2019): 1-25.
- “Edom, Judah, and the Converse Constructions of Israeliteness in Genesis 36.” Vetus Testamentum 68/1 (2018):111-128.
- “Myth and Secularism: The Place of ‘Myth’ in Teaching Human Difference and Global Engagement.” Pages 79-85 in (Re)Considering Diversity, Human Difference and Global Engagement at Muhlenberg. Muhlenberg College, 2018.
Recent Conference Papers, Panels, and Public Presentations
- “Between Babylon and Jerusalem: Israel and Mesopotamia in their Ancient Near Eastern World.” Moments in Jewish History: A 7-Part Series. Program presented via Zoom. Nov. 9, 2020.
- “Reassessing Interfaith Relations in American Jewish Studies.” Discussant. 51st Annual Conference of the Association for Jewish Studies. Dec. 15, 2019.
- “Assyriology and the Allosaurus: Inverse Rhetorical Strategies Concerning the ‘Past’ at the Creation Museum and Ark Encounter.” 64th Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale, Jul. 19, 2018.
- “Dinosaurs and Jews at the Creation Museum: History, Memory, and the Future of Evangelical-Jewish Relations in America.” Ohio Academy of History Spring Meeting, Mar. 24, 2018.
- “Myth and Secularism: The Place of ‘Myth’ in Teaching Human Difference and Global Engagement.” (Re)Considering Diversity, Human Difference and Global Engagement at Muhlenberg. Muhlenberg College, Feb. 2, 2018.
Jewish Studies
Religion Studies
Contact: dustinnash@muhlenberg.edu