Author - Paul Overland

2 articles

Paul Overland (PhD, Brandeis University) serves as Professor of Old Testament and Semitic Languages at Ashland Theological Seminary, Ohio, USA, where, with his wife Lorie, he has served for over twenty-five years. The intricacies of the Book of Proverbs first captured his fascination during dissertation research, leading eventually to contributing the Proverbs volume for the Apollos OT Commentary series (2022). His conviction that translations "leave too much on the table" fuels a second passion—exploring ways to better teach Biblical Hebrew, using modern language methods (see LearningBiblicalHebrewInteractively.com).

The phrase Structure of Proverbs in large script font with a portion of the article text in the background.

min22

Biblical Studies

More Than a List of Sayings: Detecting Proverbs’ Poetic Structure

Paul OverlandNovember 17, 2025

Riddles were the currency of Israel’s sages—those authors of the book of Proverbs. Because their community looked to them to solve life’s riddles, we should not be surprised to find them responding with riddles of their own. Yet until we learn...

min9

Biblical Languages Biblical Studies

Teaching “Sticky” Biblical Hebrew

Paul OverlandMarch 19, 2022

There is a huge problem in the way that biblical Hebrew is currently taught: it doesn’t stick. Polytetrafluoroethylene, or PTFE, is better known by its household name “Teflon.” It’s the coating on cookware that prevents food from...