James Washington Watts


James Washington Watts is an American professor of religion at Syracuse University. His research focuses on the rhetoric of Leviticus. His publications also compare the Bible with other religious scriptures, especially in their ritual performances, social functions, and material symbolism.

Biography

James W. Watts is a U.S. citizen born in Switzerland where his father, John D. W. Watts, was teaching at the International [Baptist Theological Seminary of the European Baptist Federation|International Baptist Theological Seminary] in Rüschlikon. He left there with his family in 1970 for Louisville, Kentucky. They spent three years in India where he attended Woodstock School, before finishing High School in South Pasadena, California.
Watts earned his B.A. in Philosophy from Pomona College where he studied with Frederick Sontag, briefly with Masao Abe and, during a term at Oxford University, with Stephanie Dalley. He then earned his M.Div. and M.T.S. in New Testament from Southern Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky, and his Ph.D. in Hebrew Bible/Old Testament from Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut where he studied with Robert R. Wilson, Brevard S. Childs, and Mark S. Smith.
He taught on the faculty of Hastings College in Hastings, Nebraska and then joined the Department of Religion of Syracuse University in Syracuse, New York, where he served as Department Chair from 2009 to 2015.

Academic work

James W. Watts has advocated a rhetorical approach to analyzing the contents and influence of biblical literature. He applied this method to the Pentateuch and especially to the book of Leviticus. Watts argued that the ritual rhetoric of Leviticus empowered the temple priests of Jerusalem and Samaria, who in turn ritualized the Torah/Pentateuch containing Leviticus as Judaism's first, and most important, scripture.
Watts also drew attention to "iconic books"—written texts that are revered primarily as objects of power or influential symbols rather than just as words of instruction, information, or insight. In 2001, he and Dorina Miller Parmenter founded the Iconic Books Project at Syracuse University. In 2010, together with S. Brent Plate, they founded the Society for Comparative Research in Iconic and Performative Texts.
Watts has advocated a three-dimensional model for understanding how religious communities ritualize their scriptures and other sacred texts: in the iconic dimension of the text's visual appearance, material form, and physical manipulation; in the expressive dimension of the text's expression in oral words and mental thoughts, as well as in song, visual art, theater and film; and in the semantic dimension of the text's interpretation in preaching, commentary, and ritualized study.
Watts brought these two research programs together into a religious studies approach to biblical studies. He argued that ritualizing first the Torah/Pentateuch and then biblical literature generally in these three dimensions generated their status as scripture. Their continuing ritualization by Jews and Christians in all three dimensions reinforces their scriptural status.

Published books

  • 1992: Psalm and Story: Inset Hymns in Hebrew Narrative. Journal for the Study of the Old Testament Supplement Series 139. Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1992.
  • 1996: Forming Prophetic Literature: Essays on Isaiah and the Twelve in Honor of John D. W. Watts. Journal for the study of the Old Testament Supplement Series 235. Sheffield Academic Press, 1996.
  • 1999: Reading Law: The Rhetorical Shaping of the Pentateuch. Biblical Seminar 59. Sheffield Academic Press, 1999.
  • 2001: Persia and Torah: The Theory of Imperial Authorization of the Pentateuch. Symposium Series. Society of Biblical Literature, 2001.
  • 2001: The Whirlwind: Essays on Job, Hermeneutics and Theology in Memory of Jane Morse. Journal for the study of the Old Testament Supplement Series 336. Sheffield Academic Press, 2001.
  • 2007: Ritual and Rhetoric in Leviticus: From Sacrifice to Scripture. Cambridge University Press, 2007.
  • 2013a: Leviticus 1-10, Historical Commentary on the Old Testament. Leuven: Peeters, 2013.
  • 2013b: Iconic Books and Texts. Sheffield: Equinox, 2013.
  • 2017: Understanding the Pentateuch as A Scripture. Oxford: Wiley Blackwell, 2017.
  • 2018: Sensing Sacred Texts. Sheffield: Equinox, 2018.
  • 2019: How and Why Books Matter: Essays on the Social Function of Iconic Texts. Sheffield: Equinox, 2019.
  • 2021a: Understanding the Bible as A Scripture in History, Culture, and Religion. Oxford: Wiley Blackwell, 2021.
  • 2021b: Cosmologies of Pure Realms and the Rhetoric of Pollution. New York: Routledge, 2021.
  • 2021c: Books as Bodies and as Sacred Beings. Sheffield: Equinox, 2021.
  • 2023: Leviticus 11-20, Historical Commentary on the Old Testament. Leuven: Peeters, 2023.