SONG of SONGS 

 

 March 11 - 26  2021  

 

 

 PRINCIPAL LECTURER 

Sr Barbara Green, OP, DSPT 

 

Sister Barbara Green is Professor Emeritus at the Dominican School of Philosophy and

Theology at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, California. She retired recently after

fifty years of teaching that ranged from high school to graduate programs. Her education

included work in classical languages (Latin, Greek, Hebrew). Her doctorate in Near Eastern

Religions was awarded jointly by the University of California at Berkeley and the Graduate

Theological Union in 1980, with a dissertation titled, “A Study of Field and Seed Symbolism in

the Biblical Story of Ruth.” During her professional ministry she has authored some twelve

scholarly books, including Jeremiah and God’s Plans of Well-Being (University of South

Carolina Press, 2013) and David’s Capacity for Compassion: A Literary-Hermeneutical Study of

1–2 Samuel (Bloomsbury, 2017). She has contributed many articles to other works, most

recently “Jonah” In The Paulist Biblical Commentary (Paulist Press, 2018) and “Joab’s

Coherence and Incoherence,” in Character and Characterization in the Books of Samuel (edited

by Keith Bodner and Benjamin Johnson, Bloomsbury, 2020). She has also produced a set of

fiction works, whose plots are modeled on biblical books. Her latest public talks were “Can We

Do That? Reading Sacred Texts as They Read Us,” (Annual Reading of the Sacred Texts at the

Graduate Theological Union, 2018) and “Laudato Si’: Why We May Resist, How We Might

Resist our Resistance,” (St. Rita’s Parish, Fairfax CA 2019). In her years at the Graduate

Theological Union she has mentored many students through the completion of Masters and

Doctoral programs in Biblical Studies and Christian Spirituality. She is currently in a position of

full-time ministry on the leadership team of the congregation, the Dominican Sisters of San

Rafael, California and working on the Book of Psalms.

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