Visiting Professor of Theology
Matthew Arakaky
Educational Background:
M.A., Religious Studies, University of Chicago
M.Div., Princeton Theological Seminary
B.A., Religious Studies and Psychology, University of Virginia
Time at PHC: 2019 to present
Matthew A. Arakaky is a specialist in the study of the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament. He earned his bachelor’s degree in Religious Studies and Psychology, with distinction, from the University of Virginia. He also holds a Master of Divinity from Princeton Seminary, a Master of Religious Studies from the University of Chicago, and completed coursework in Northwest Semitic Philology, Egyptology, and Assyriology at the Johns Hopkins University. He is currently finishing his PhD at Duke University, where he is writing on the book of Lamentations. His research languages include German, French, Spanish, Hebrew (classical, historical grammar), Koine Greek, Aramaic (various dialects including Syriac), Akkadian, and Ugaritic. His interests lie in the literary, theological, and historical approaches to the Hebrew Bible, and as an aspiring scholar and minister, he especially hopes to bring the local church into theological and academic conversations.
At Princeton Seminary, he was the recipient of the Princeton Seminary Fellowship, the Henry Snyder Gehman Award in Old Testament, and the Senior Fellowship in Old Testament. In 2023, he was named one of two Emerging Scholar Fellows in Old Testament by the Catholic Biblical Association of America, and in 2025, he was awarded the HTI/Lilly Dissertation Completion Fellowship. Recently, he has published peer-reviewed articles in Ugarit Forschungen (UF) and Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft (ZAW). For fun, he enjoys going to the gym to lift weights and run, spending time with family and friends, and teaching at his home church.