Peter J Williams

Scholarly activities:

• Chair of the International Greek New Testament Project

• Member of the Translation Committee of the English Standard Version of the Bible

Current research includes:

• Eratosthenes; the parables of Jesus

Publications

Books:

Studies in the Syntax of the Peshitta of 1 Kings (E.J. Brill, 2001).

Early Syriac Translation Technique and the Textual Criticism of the Greek Gospels (Texts and Studies; Gorgias Press, 2004).

P.J. Williams, A.D. Clarke, P.M. Head and D. Instone-Brewer, eds., The New Testament in Its First Century Setting: Essays on Context and Background in Honour of B.W. Winter on His 65th Birthday (Eerdmans, 2004).

Editor, Syriac Word Sources, Senses and Functions (Perspectives on Syriac Linguistics; Gorgias Press, 2009).

Primi passi nello studio dell'Antico Testamento (Edizioni GBU, 2009).

Associate Editor, The Greek New Testament Produced at Tyndale House, Cambridge (Crossway and Cambridge University Press, 2017)

Can We Trust the Gospels? (Crossway, 2018). Translated into French, German, Hungarian, Norwegian, Polish, and Romanian.

The Surprising Genius of Jesus (Crossway, forthcoming October 2023)

Select articles and chapters:

‘The Difference between the Roots plṭ and mlṭ’, Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft 114 (2002) 438–42.

‘On the Representation of Sahidic within the Apparatus of the Nestle-Aland Novum Testamentum Graece’, Journal of Coptic Studies8 (2006) 123–25.

‘Alleged Syriac Catchwords in the Gospel of Thomas’, Vigiliae Christianae 63 (2009) 71–82.

‘Expressing Definiteness in Aramaic: A Response to Casey’s Theory concerning the Son of Man Sayings’, in Larry W. Hurtado and Paul L. Owen, eds., “Who is this son of man?”: The Latest Scholarship on a Puzzling Expression of the Historical Jesus (T&T Clark, 2011) 61–77.

‘“Slaves” in Biblical Narrative and in Translation’, in J.K. Aitken and B. Mastin, eds., On Stone and Scroll (Festschrift G.I. Davies; De Gruyter, 2011) 441–52.

‘Not the Prologue of John’, Journal for the Study of the New Testament 33 (2011) 375–86.

‘An examination of Ehrman’s case for ὀργισθείς in Mark 1:41’, Novum Testamentum 54 (2012) 1–12.

‘The Bible, the Septuagint, and the Apocrypha: A Consideration of Their Singularity’, in Geoffrey Khan and Diana Lipton, eds., Studies on the Text and Versions of the Hebrew Bible in Honour of Robert Gordon (Leiden: Brill, 2012) 169–80.

‘The Syriac Versions of the New Testament’, in Bart D. Ehrman and Michael Holmes, eds., The Text of the New Testament in Contemporary Research (2nd edn; Leiden: Brill, 2013) 143–66.

‘Syriac Versions of the Bible’ in J. Carleton Paget and J. Schaper, eds., Cambridge History of the Bible (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013) 527–535.

‘Semitic Long /i/ Vowels in the Greek of Codex Vaticanus of the New Testament’, in Nadia Vidro, Ronny Vollandt, Esther-Miriam Wagner and Judith Olszowy-Schlanger, eds., Studies in Semitic Linguistics and Manuscripts: A Liber Discipulorum in Honour of Professor Geoffrey Khan (Studia Semitica Upsaliensa, 2018) 15–26. View here. 

'When Does συν- Assimilate' in H.A.G. Houghton, David C. Parker and Holger Strutwolf, eds., The New Testament in Antiquity and Byzantium (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2019) 429–438. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110591682-029

Gysembergh, V., Williams, P. J. & Zingg, E. Journal for the History of Astronomy 53, 383–393 (2022).https://doi.org/10.1177/00218286221128289

Peter J. Williams, Patrick James, Jamie Klair, Peter Malik and Sarah Zaman, 'Newly Discovered Illustrated Texts of Aratus and Eratosthenes within Codex Climaci Rescriptus', The Classical Quarterly (2022). doi:10.1017/S0009838822000726

Other:

Member of Society of Biblical Literature

Member of Society for Old Testament Study

Member of Studiorum Novi Testamenti Societas

Member of Tyndale Fellowship for Biblical Research

Member of Evangelical Theological Society

Editorial Board, Texts and Studies (2012–present)

Editorial Board, SOTS Monograph Series (2015–present)

Twitter: @DrPJWilliams

Watch Dr Williams' talk on Can We Trust the Gospels?