## 200 Years of Danish Evangelical Old Testament Scholarship

Christian Canu Højgaard Fjellhaug International University College, Copenhagen cch@dbi.edu

Markus Zehnder

Internationale Hochschule Liebenzell; ETF Leuven; Ansgar Teologiske Høgskole markus.zehnder@ihl.eu

The contributions of this volume are the written versions of papers held in honour of Carsten Vang, Nicolai Winther-Nielsen, and Jens Bruun Kofoed at the Copenhagen Lutheran School of Theology on September 15-16, 2023, presented on the occasion of the celebration of their combined 200 years anniversary in appreciation of their lifetime service in academia and church.

The papers presented at the conference and published in this volume testify to the manifold interests and expertise of the three scholars, spanning from biblical ethics, language, and exegesis to biblical history, culture, and theology, all for the sake of promoting an appreciation of the Bible as reliable and life-giving Scripture.

Carsten Vang was born on September 11, 1953, in Tjørring, Denmark. Following his MA in Theology from the University of Aarhus in 1983, he joined the Lutheran School of Theology in Aarhus where he taught Old Testament exegesis until his retirement in 2023. At the Lutheran School of Theology he also served as Academic Dean in the years 2003-2006 and 2008-2018. Over the years he has been a trusted and beloved contributor to and editor of the biblical-archaeological journal TEL . During the preparations of this volume, it was with great sorrow that we received the news of his untimely death November 23, 2024, at the age of just 71 years. It is our hope that the papers of this volume will honour his lasting legacy. May his memory be a blessing.

Nicolai Winther-Nielsen was born on October 26, 1953, in Tønder, Denmark. He received a subsidiary degree in Assyriology in 1978 and his MA in Theology in 1982, both from the University of Copenhagen, and his doctoral degree in Old Testament from the University of Lund in 1995. In 1976 he joined the faculty of Copenhagen Lutheran School of Theology as a Hebrew lecturer. From 19922002 he was Associate Professor in Old Testament at Menighedsfakultetet before returning to Copenhagen Lutheran School of Theology in 2002 where he served as Professor of Old Testament and Information and Communication Technology until 2023. He was a visiting lecturer in Multimedia and Persuasive Design at the University of Aalborg (2002-2015) and Work Package Leader for EuroPLOT (2010-2013); he also served as Visiting Professor at the Lutheran Graduate School of Theology in Madagascar (2010 and 2013) and is an affiliated researcher at the Eep Talstra Centre for Bible and Computer at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (since 2016). His passions for the Hebrew Bible, linguistics and learning technology were combined when he co-founded the journal Hiphil in 2003 with Jens Bruun Kofoed. The journal was relaunched as HIPHIL Novum in 2014, and he held the editorial chair until 2023.

Jens Bruun Kofoed was born on June 1, 1963, in Rønne, Denmark. He received his MA degree in Theology from the University of Copenhagen in 1992 and his doctoral degree in Old Testament from the University of Aarhus in 2001. He has taught Old Testament exegesis, history and theology at the Copenhagen Lutheran School of Theology since 1995 and serves presently as Professor of Old Testament at Fjellhaug International University College and Copenhagen Lutheran School of Theology simultaneously. He also taught Multimedia Homiletics at the University of Aalborg (2003-2006) and served as Visiting Professor at the Lutheran Graduate School of Theology in Madagascar (2011 and 2014). From 2017-2019 he was an affiliated researcher at Carl F. Henry Center for Theological Understanding's Creation Project, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, Chicago. Since 2018, he has been the Theological Director of Center for Theology in Praxis at Copenhagen Lutheran School of Theology.

Alongside their academic accomplishments, these esteemed scholars have been devoted to the life of the church. They have been sought-after speakers in churches and frequent writers in Christian magazines. Hundreds of their former students now minister in churches all over Denmark or serve as missionaries in various parts of the world. Their faithful and impressive work will live on in generations to come.