Scholar, author, activist and first Asian American and first woman of color to serve as president of the Society of Biblical Literature Gale A Yee., Ph.D., D.Div. (hon), will bring her experience and insights to the 2025 Janzen Lectureship in Biblical Studies at Fresno Pacific University March 20-22. 

The lectureship is presented by FPU and First Chinese Baptist Church, Fresno. This year’s edition features three events the first two on the main FPU campus, 1717 S. Chestnut Ave., and the third at First Chinese Baptist Church, Fresno, at 6080 N. Angus St.

Schedule of Public Lectures & Conversations 

March 20, 2025 

Weibe Educational Center (WEC 132) and Courtyard Fresno Pacific University 

6:00 p.m. | Dessert Reception 
6:30 p.m. | “The Landscape of Poverty in Ancient Israel and Today” 

March 21, 2025 

BC Lounge (NOH132) Fresno Pacific University 

10:00 a.m. | “Poverty in the Asian American Community: to Dispelling the Model Minority, Perpetual Foreigner, and Crazy Rich Asian Myths” 

March 22, 2025 

First Chinese Baptist Church, Fresno 

9:30 a.m. | Welcome/Registration 
10:00 a.m. | Asian American Biblical Interpretation |
11:30 a.m. | Free luncheon RSVP required: www.fresno.edu/Janzen-lectureship-2025

Gale A. Yee

Gale A. Yee, Ph.D., D.Div. (hon)., is Nancy W. King Professor of Biblical Studies emerita, Episcopal Divinity School. She is the author of Towards and Asian American Biblical Hermeneutics: An Intersectional Anthology; Poor Banished Children of Eve: Woman as Evil in the Hebrew Bible; Jewish Feasts and the Gospel of John; Composition and Tradition in the Book of Hosea; “The Book of Hosea” commentary in The New Interpreters Bible Vol. VII, as well as many articles and essays. She is the editor of Judges and Method: New Approaches in Biblical Studies (2007), a co-editor for the Texts@Context series, the Fortress Commentary on the Old Testament and Apocrypha (2014), editor of The Hebrew Bible: Feminist and Intersectional Perspectives (2018) for Fortress Press and former general editor of Semeia Studies. In 2019, she became the first Asian American and first woman of color to serve as president of the Society of Biblical Literature. She was awarded an honorary Doctor of Divinity from Virginia Theological Seminary in 2020. She lives at Pilgrim Place, a retirement community in Claremont, CA, known for its social activism.

About the Janzen Lectureship 

The Edmund Janzen Lectureship in Biblical Studies promotes careful scholarship in biblical interpretation as well as the witness of the Christian church. The lectures are intended for university faculty and students, pastors and lay leaders. Lectures occur in spring alternating annually between scholars of the Old and New Testaments. The lectureship is possible through an endowment established in 2005 to honor the 35 years Edmund Janzen served FPU as president and faculty member. These lectures reflect the value of biblical study for the mission of the church Janzen taught his students. To support this continuing work, please contribute to the endowment at fpu.edu/give/giving-opportunities   

 

Author

Wayne Steffen
Associate Director of Publications and Media Relations

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