Sprinkle, Joe M. 1953-

PERSONAL:

Born August 18, 1953, in Oklahoma City, OK; son of Joseph (an insulating company officer) and Verna (a homemaker) Sprinkle; married August 9, 1986; wife's name Christilee (a school psychologist); children: Rebecca, Tamara. Ethnicity: "American." Education: University of Oklahoma, B.S. (with special distinction), 1976; Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, M.Div. (summa cum laude), 1982; attended Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 1983; Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, Cincinnati, OH, M.Phil., 1987, Ph.D., 1991. Politics: Republican. Religion: Evangelical.

ADDRESSES:

Home—Rochester, MN. Office—Crossroads College, 920 Mayowood Rd. SW, Rochester, MN 55902. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER:

Fibercast Co., Sand Springs, OK, industrial engineer, 1976-78; Temple Bible College, Cincinnati, OH, instructor in biblical Hebrew, 1985-86; Wright State University, Dayton, OH, adjunct instructor in religion, 1986, 1987; Toccoa Falls College, Toccoa Falls, GA, instructor, 1988-91, assistant professor, 1991-96, associate professor, 1996-98, professor of Old Testament and Semitic languages, 1998-2003, faculty scholar of the year, 1993-94, 2000-01; Crossroads College, Rochester, MN, professor of Old Testament, 2003—. Pastor of United Methodist church in Toccoa, 1993-94; Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, instructor, 1996; occasional preacher and supply minister, 2003—; scholarly presenter; guest on media programs. Southern Baptist Convention, LifeWay Christian Resources, editor and translator for Holman Christian Standard Bible, 1999-2002; Global Word, Inc., translator into biblical/targumic Aramaic, 2002.

MEMBER:

Evangelical Theological Society (regional vice chair, 2000), Institute for Biblical Research, Society of Biblical Literature.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Kosberg Family Interfaith Scholarship, 1989-91.

WRITINGS:

"The Book of the Covenant:" A Literary Approach, Sheffield Academic Press (Sheffield, England), 1994.

Biblical Law and Its Relevance: A Christian Understanding and Ethical Application for Today of the Mosaic Regulations, University Press of America (Lanham, MD), 2006.

Author of religious curriculum materials. Contributor to biblical dictionaries. Contributor of articles and reviews to scholarly journals, including Decision, Alliance Academic Review, Bulletin for Biblical Research, Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society, Stone-Campbell Journal, and Westminster Theological Journal.

SIDELIGHTS:

Joe M. Sprinkle once told CA: "Instrumental to my career was my conversion to evangelical Christianity in my senior year of high school. That led me to pursue the intellectual foundations of the Christian faith and to study Greek, which led to seminary and a doctoral program. Such writers as C.S. Lewis, Francis Schaeffer, F.F. Bruce, Leon Morris, George Eldon Ladd, Bernard Ramm, and the like were instrumental in my intellectual development from the Christian viewpoint, and my mentors Thomas McComiskey, W. Kaiser, Gleason Archer, Donald Carson, Douglas Moo, H.C. Brichto, and M. Tsevat were instrumental in my approach to biblical criticism."

More recently Sprinkle wrote: "As a scholar-teacher it is important to continue to study and learn. Writing scholarly essays forces one to continue in the scholarly enterprise and not stagnate as a teacher. And where one has come up with interesting insights, writing allows one to share that with others. There is always a teaching purpose to my writings as I share what I have learned.

"I begin the writing process by taking ideas, whether my own or those requested by a publisher or editor, and researching what has already been said on that subject. Then I write scholarly essays that interact with the resources I have found. These often are read first at scholarly professional meetings and then are published as separate essays in journals or reference works. These essays then form the basis for chapters in books.

"I have a special interest in biblical law. This began with my studies under Walter Kaiser at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, where I discovered that this was an important but unsettled area of Christian theology. It was furthered with my studies under H.C. Brichto at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in Cincinnati, where Jewish insights into the study of biblical law enriched my understanding and motivated me to deeper study."