Rate My Professor Frederik Poulsen

Frederik Poulsen (b. 1984) is Associate Professor of the Old Testament at the Faculty of Theology, University of Copenhagen. He earned his Cand.theol., PhD in 2014 with the dissertation God, His Servant, and the Nations in Isaiah 42:1-9: Biblical Theological Reflections after Brevard S. Childs and Hans Hübner, and dr.theol. in 2019 with The Black Hole in Isaiah: A Study of Exile as a Literary Theme, all from the University of Copenhagen. His research interests encompass migration and diaspora in the Bible, prophetic literature with a focus on the book of Isaiah, biblical theology and reception, exile as a literary and theological theme, religious identity in diaspora settings, earliest Judean communities in Egypt and Mesopotamia, and return migration in the Old Testament. Poulsen has been a visiting researcher at Oxford, Jerusalem, Bonn, and Yale University. In the Faculty of Theology's Section of Biblical Exegesis, he contributes to scholarship on the Old Testament as Christian Scripture and biblical readings in church services.

Poulsen serves as Principal Investigator of the project Divergent Views of Diaspora in Ancient Judaism (2022–2026), funded by the Independent Research Fund Denmark's Sapere Aude programme, analyzing textual depictions of early Jewish diaspora (597–331 BCE) in the Hebrew Bible, Elephantine Papyri, and Al-Yahudu documents. He previously led Stories in a Strange Land: Biblical Narratives about Assimilation and Religious Identity (2018–2021), supported by the Carlsberg Foundation, and Images of Exile (2015–2017), funded by the Independent Research Fund Denmark's Sapere Aude programme, resulting in monographs and edited volumes. His accolades include the Nils Klim Prize (2020), Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters' Silver Medal (2020), and Sapere Aude: DFF-Research Leader (2021). Key publications feature Representing Zion: Judgement and Salvation in the Old Testament (Routledge, 2015), The Black Hole in Isaiah (Mohr Siebeck, 2019), Images of Exile in the Prophetic Literature (co-editor, Mohr Siebeck, 2019), Judeans in the Land of the Nile: Papers on Achaemenid Egypt, Elephantine, and the Hebrew Bible (co-editor, 2026), and popular works such as Ezras Bog, Nehemias Bog (2023) and Usædvanlige bibelhistorier for unge og gamle (co-author, 2026). He has co-edited volumes on biblical liturgy and the Bible and Qur'an.