Richard E. Averbeck, PhD

Richard E. Averbeck is professor of Old Testament and Semitic languages at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Deerfield, Illinois. He has been at Trinity since 1994.

Prior to coming to Trinity, Dr. Averbeck taught for four years at Dallas Theological Seminary, teaching in both the Old Testament and pastoral ministries departments. He also taught for ten years at Grace Theological Seminary, serving as chairman of the Old Testament department for four years and chairman of the seminary curriculum planning committee for five.

He received the Bachelor of Arts in biblical languages from Calvary Bible College in Kansas City, Missouri; the Master of Divinity from Grace Theological Seminary in Winona Lake, Indiana; the Doctor of Philosophy from Annenberg Research Institute (formerly Dropsie College) in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; and the Master of Arts in biblical counseling from Grace Theological Seminary.

Dr. Averbeck's areas of expertise include Old Testament, especially the Pentateuch; ancient Near Eastern history and languages; Old Testament criticism; Hebrew; and biblical counseling. He is a member of the Evangelical Theological Society, the Institute for Biblical Research, the American Oriental Society, and the Society of Biblical Literature.

Dr. Averbeck has been published in several journals and has contributed numerous articles to Evangelical Dictionary of Biblical Theology (Baker 1995), Faith, Tradition, and History (Eisenbrauns 1994), Cracking Old Testament Codes: Guide to Interpreting Old Testament Literary Forms (Broadman and Holman 1995) and the New International Dictionary of Old Testament Theology and Exegesis (Zondervan, 1997). He coauthered The Word and Its World: An Introduction to the Old Testament (Baker, 2003) and coedited the volume and written a major article in Crossing Boundaries and Linking Horizons: Studies in Honor of Micheal C. Astour (Bethesda, Maryland: CDL Press, 1997). He is  translating and writing notes on Numbers 18-36 for The Holman Christian Standard Bible and has completed the translation and notes for Leviticus for The NET Bible (New English Translation).

Dr. Averbeck and his wife, Melinda, reside in Kenosha, Wisconsin. They have two sons.