Brief Bio

Nicolae Roddy, Ph.D.

Brief Bio

Dr. Nicolae Roddy is Associate Professor of Theology at Creighton University, where he teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in Hebrew Bible / Old[er] Testament. Although his academic training is primarily in the literature of the ancient Near East, for over a decade Roddy has been serving as co-director for both the Consortium of the Bethsaida Excavations Project and the Virtual World Project (www.virtualworldproject.org). He is currently President of the Rocky Mountain/Great Plains Region of the AAR/SBL and serves on the steering committee of the Religious Experience in Early Judaism and Early Christianity section of SBL. More recently, Roddy assumed the role of Senior Editor for the new Journal of the Orthodox Center for the Advancement of Biblical Studies (JOCABS, available at www.ocabs.org/journal).

Nicolae Roddy earned the Master of Arts in Theology from St. Vladimir's Orthodox Theological Seminary (1989), where he studied under the academic and spiritual direction of Fr John Meyendorff (memory eternal) and Fr Paul Nadim Tarazi. Roddy earned his Ph.D. from the University of Iowa (1999) in the area of Judaism and Christianity in the Greco-Roman World, under the direction of George Nickelsburg. A portion of Roddy's doctoral program was devoted to his tenure as Fulbright Scholar to Romania for the 1994-1995 academic year, where he completed research for his dissertation and resulting book, The Romanian Version of the Testament of Abraham: Text, Translation, and Cultural Context, published in the Early Judaism and Its Literature series of the Society of Biblical Literature (2001). Roddy also produced an edited work titled Words of a Shepherd: The Life and Writings of Protostavrophor Vojislav Dosenovich (Jordanville, NY: Holy Trinity Monastery, 2006) and is the author of several book chapters and journal articles (see curriculum vitae).

Nicolae Roddy is married to Michelle Hayes-Roddy. Their children are Aurelia (16), Elijah (13), Alexandru (4), and Anika (1). Although Nicolae is of Romanian Orthodox heritage, he and his family are active members of St. Nicholas Serbian Orthodox Church in Omaha, NE, where Dr. Roddy serves as Vice President of the Church Board and Vice President of the St. Nicholas Choir.

The Roddys at the park,

Nov. 2006.

Michelle at the Sea of Galilee on our wedding day, June 29, 2000.

Supervising the dig at Bethsaida

Adding the Neanderthal Caves of Amud to the Virtual World Project

Petra, Jordan, Virtual World Project, 2005.

I really love my job, too!

I truly enjoy engaging my students in the learning process. Toward that end I fashion my career after the teacher/scholar model in that my research informs my teaching, which in turn inspires my research. Since I primarily teach undergraduate and graduate-level courses in Old[er] Testament, much of my research is based on extra-biblical near eastern literature and archaeology.

Those who cannot come to Bethsaida to dig with me may enjoy the archaeology of the Near East in the classroom or at home in virtual reality via the Virtual World Project. This web-based, interactive virtual reality website covers nearly all the major archaeological sites in Palestine/Israel, and Jordan, from the Paleolithic era, like the Neanderthal site of Amud Caves (left), through the Bronze and Iron ages, the Persian and Hellenistic-Roman eras and up to the Byzantine and Islamic periods.

Last summer, my colleague, Dr. Ronald Simkins (the creator and maintainer of the VWP site), and I travelled to Jordan where we shot over 25,000 digital images and added another 44 Jordanian sites to the project, available at www.virtualworldproject.org. Our latest development to the site includes the addition of audio-guided tours (see, for example, Qsar Bashir). We hope your virtual tours will inspire you to travel to Jordan to meet its friendly people and experience firsthand its splendid antiquities and the breathtaking diversity of its natural terrain.

"I am convinced that until we rediscover that we live authentically for ourselves only by living commitedly for others, we will continue moving toward individualism devoid of worth and, ultimately, extinction."

Please contact me for any comments or requests in connection with this site at nroddy@creighton.edu.

© 2005-2008 by Nicolae Roddy