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Journal for the Study of the Old Testament

Journal for the Study of the Old Testament

Other Titles in:
Biblical Studies

eISSN: 14766728 | ISSN: 03090892 | Current volume: 48 | Current issue: 3 Frequency: 5 Times/Year

"The Journal for the Study of the Old Testament, and the platform it provides for a wide range of critical approaches, plays a vital role in the field of biblical studies." Ehud Ben Zvi, Professor of Religious Studies, University of Alberta, Canada

"In the thirty years of its existence, The Journal for the Study of the Old Testament has rightly won a reputation as an interesting, innovative and daring journal. It is the journal where many scholars feel at home, where they can express their most pioneering and sometimes even strange ideas, provided these ideas meet the highest standards of research. When one compares it with more conservative journals, one wonders what we would do without JSOT.’ Professor Yairah Amit, Tel Aviv University, Israel

Since its establishment in 1976, the Journal for the Study of the Old Testament has become widely regarded as offering the best in current scholarship on the Old Testament across a range of critical methodologies. Many original and creative approaches to the interpretation of the Old Testament literature and cognate fields of inquiry are pioneered in this journal, which showcases the work of both new and established scholars.

All issues of The Journal for the Study of the Old Testament are available to browse online.

This journal is a member of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE)

Since its establishment in 1976, the Journal for the Study of the Old Testament has become widely regarded as offering the best in current, peer-reviewed scholarship on the Old Testament across a range of critical methodologies. Many original and creative approaches to the interpretation of the Old Testament literature and cognate fields of inquiry are pioneered in this journal, which showcases the work of both new and established scholars.

Editors
David Shepherd Trinity College Dublin, Ireland
Lena-Sofia Tiemeyer Örebro School of Theology, Sweden
Book Review Editor
Samuel Hildebrandt Nazarene Theological College, Manchester, UK
Editorial Board
Brad Anderson Dublin City University, Ireland
Bob Becking Universiteit Utrecht, Netherlands
Keith Bodner Crandall University, Canada
Thomas Bolin St Norbert College, USA
Brennan Breed Columbia Theological Seminary, USA
Carly Crouch Radboud University, Netherlands
Eryl Davies Bangor University, UK
John Day University of Oxford, UK
Katharine Dell University of Cambridge, UK
Tova Forti Ben Gurion University of the Negev, Israel
Rachelle Gilmour Trinity College, University of Divinity, Australia
Alphonso Groenewald University of Pretoria, South Africa
David Gunn Texas Christian University, USA
James Harding University of Otago, New Zealand
Elizabeth R. Hayes Fuller Theological Seminary, USA
Aaron Hornkohl University of Cambridge, UK
David Janzen University of Durham, UK
Anne Katrin de Hemmer Gudme University of Oslo, Norway
Tuukka Kauhanen University of Helsinki, Finland
Francis Landy University of Alberta, Canada
Mark Leuchter Temple University, USA
Dr Hilary Marlow University of Cambridge,UK
Sharon Moughtin  
Nadav Na'aman Tel Aviv University, Israel
Shirly Natan-Yulzary Beit Berl Academic College, Israel
Martin O'Kane University of Wales Trinity Saint David, UK
Anathea Portier-Young Duke Divinity School, USA
Deborah Rooke Regent's Park College, University of Oxford, UK
Erin Runions Pomona College, USA
Jason Silverman University of Helsinki, Finland
Jonathan Stökl Leiden University, the Netherlands
Hanna Tervanotko McMaster University, Canada
Rannfrid Thelle Wichita State University, USA
Pierre Van Hecke University of Leuven, Belgium
Rebecca Watson University of Cambridge, UK
Gerald West University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa
  • ATLA Religion Database
  • Academic Search Premier
  • Biblical Bibliography of Lausanne (Switzerland)
  • Clarivate Analytics: Arts & Humanities Citation Index (AHCI)
  • IBZ: International Bibliography of Periodical Literature
  • IBZ: International Bibliography of Periodical Literature in the Humanities and Social Sciences
  • Index To Jewish Periodicals
  • Index theologicus
  • New Testament Abstracts
  • Religion & Philosophy Collection
  • Theology Digest
  • Web of Science
  • Zeller Dietrich Bibliographische Verlage
  • Manuscript Submission Guidelines: Journal for the Study of the Old Testament

    Please read the guidelines below then visit the Journal’s submission site https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/jsot to upload your manuscript. Please note that manuscripts not conforming to these guidelines may be returned.

    Only manuscripts of sufficient quality that meet the aims and scope of Journal for the Study of the Old Testament will be reviewed.

    The Journal for the Study of the Old Testament aims to offer the best in current, peer-reviewed scholarship on the Hebrew Bible across a range of critical methodologies. Contributions are welcome from both new and established scholars. Reviewers are looking especially for original and creative approaches to the interpretation of the Old Testament literature and cognate fields of inquiry.

    There are no fees payable to submit or publish in this Journal. Open Access options are available - see section 3.3 below.

    As part of the submission process you will be required to warrant that you are submitting your original work, that you have the rights in the work, and that you have obtained and can supply all necessary permissions for the reproduction of any copyright works not owned by you, that you are submitting the work for first publication in the Journal and that it is not being considered for publication elsewhere and has not already been published elsewhere. Please see our guidelines on prior publication and note that Journal for the Study of the Old Testament may accept submissions of papers that have been posted on pre-print servers; please alert the Editorial Office when submitting (contact details are at the end of these guidelines) and include the DOI for the preprint in the designated field in the manuscript submission system. Authors should not post an updated version of their paper on the preprint server while it is being peer reviewed for possible publication in the journal. If the article is accepted for publication, the author may re-use their work according to the journal's author archiving policy. If your paper is accepted, you must include a link on your preprint to the final version of your paper.

    1. What do we publish?
      1.1 Aims & Scope
      1.2 Article types
      1.3 Writing your paper
    2. Editorial policies
      2.1 Peer review policy
      2.2 Authorship
      2.3 Acknowledgements
      2.4 Declaration of conflicting interests
    3. Publishing policies
      3.1 Publication ethics
      3.2 Contributor's publishing agreement
      3.3 Open access and author archiving
    4. Preparing your manuscript
      4.1 Formatting
      4.2 Artwork, figures and other graphics
      4.3 Supplementary material 
      4.4 Journal style
      4.5 Reference style
    5. Submitting your manuscript
      5.1 ORCID
      5.2 Information required for completing your submission
      5.3 Permissions
    6. On acceptance and publication
      6.1 Sage Production
      6.2 Online First publication
      6.3 Access to your published article
      6.4 Promoting your article
      6.5 Proofs
      6.6 E-Prints and Complimentary Copies
    7. Further information

     

    1. What do we publish?

    1.1 Aims & Scope

    Before submitting your manuscript to Journal for the Study of the Old Testament, please ensure you have read the Aims & Scope.

    1.2 Article Types

    The Journal for the Study of the Old Testament publishes original research articles (in four issues per year) and book reviews (in a special fifth issue prepared under the auspices of the Society for Old Testament Study).

    Articles submitted for consideration should be between 5,000 and 10,000 words (including footnotes if any, but not including bibliography if listed separately).

    The current Book List Editor is Dr Samuel Hildebrandt. For books to be considered for review in the Book List, please contact the editor via email with any advertisement or inquiries at shildebrandt@nazarene.ac.uk.

    1.3 Writing your paper

    The Sage Author Gateway has some general advice and on how to get published, plus links to further resources.

    1.3.1 Make your article discoverable

    When writing up your paper, think about how you can make it discoverable. The title, keywords and abstract are key to ensuring readers find your article through search engines such as Google. For information and guidance on how best to title your article, write your abstract and select your keywords, have a look at this page on the Gateway: How to Help Readers Find Your Article Online.

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    2. Editorial policies

    2.1 Peer review policy

    The Journal for the Study of the Old Testament operates a double-anonymize review process in which the identities of the author and the reviewer are withheld from each other.

    2.2 Authorship

    All parties who have made a substantive contribution to the article should be listed as authors. Principal authorship, authorship order, and other publication credits should be based on the relative scientific or professional contributions of the individuals involved, regardless of their status. A student is usually listed as principal author on any multiple-authored publication that substantially derives from the student’s dissertation or thesis.

    Please note that AI chatbots, for example ChatGPT, should not be listed as authors. For more information see the policy on Use of ChatGPT and generative AI tools.

    2.3 Acknowledgements

    All contributors who do not meet the criteria for authorship should be listed in an Acknowledgements section. Examples of those who might be acknowledged include a person who provided purely technical help, or a department chair who provided only general support.

    Please supply any personal acknowledgements separately to the main text to facilitate anonymous peer review.

    2.3.1 Third party submissions
    Where an individual who is not listed as an author submits a manuscript on behalf of the author(s), a statement must be included in the Acknowledgements section of the manuscript and in the accompanying cover letter. The statements must:

    • Disclose this type of editorial assistance – including the individual’s name, company and level of input
    • Identify any entities that paid for this assistance
    • Confirm that the listed authors have authorized the submission of their manuscript via third party and approved any statements or declarations, e.g. conflicting interests, funding, etc.

    Where appropriate, Sage reserves the right to deny consideration to manuscripts submitted by a third party rather than by the authors themselves.

    2.3.2 Writing assistance

    Individuals who provided writing assistance, e.g. from a specialist communications company, do not qualify as authors and so should be included in the Acknowledgements section. Authors must disclose any writing assistance – including the individual’s name, company and level of input – and identify the entity that paid for this assistance. It is not necessary to disclose use of language polishing services.

    2.4 Declaration of conflicting interests

    Journal for the Study of the Old Testament  encourages authors to include a declaration of any conflicting interests and recommends you review the good practice guidelines on the Sage Journal Author Gateway.

    2.5 Research data

    The journal is committed to facilitating openness, transparency and reproducibility of research, and has the following research data sharing policy. For more information, including FAQs please visit the Sage Research Data policy pages.

    Subject to appropriate ethical and legal considerations, authors are encouraged to:

    • share your research data in a relevant public data repository
    • include a data availability statement linking to your data. If it is not possible to share your data, we encourage you to consider using the statement to explain why it cannot be shared.
    • cite this data in your research

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    3. Publishing Policies

    3.1 Publication ethics

    Sage is committed to upholding the integrity of the academic record. We encourage authors to refer to the Committee on Publication Ethics’ International Standards for Authors and view the Publication Ethics page on the Sage Author Gateway.

    3.1.1 Plagiarism

    Journal for the Study of the Old Testament  and Sage take issues of copyright infringement, plagiarism or other breaches of best practice in publication very seriously. We seek to protect the rights of our authors and we always investigate claims of plagiarism or misuse of published articles. Equally, we seek to protect the reputation of the journal against malpractice. Submitted articles may be checked with duplication-checking software. Where an article, for example, is found to have plagiarised other work or included third-party copyright material without permission or with insufficient acknowledgement, or where the authorship of the article is contested, we reserve the right to take action including, but not limited to: publishing an erratum or corrigendum (correction); retracting the article; taking up the matter with the head of department or dean of the author's institution and/or relevant academic bodies or societies; or taking appropriate legal action.

    3.1.2 Prior publication

    If material has been previously published it is not generally acceptable for publication in a Sage journal. However, there are certain circumstances where previously published material can be considered for publication. Please refer to the guidance on the Sage Author Gateway or if in doubt, contact the Editor at the address given below.

    3.2 Contributor's publishing agreement

    Before publication, Sage requires the author as the rights holder to sign a Journal Contributor’s Publishing Agreement. Sage’s Journal Contributor’s Publishing Agreement is an exclusive licence agreement which means that the author retains copyright in the work but grants Sage the sole and exclusive right and licence to publish for the full legal term of copyright. Exceptions may exist where an assignment of copyright is required or preferred by a proprietor other than Sage. In this case copyright in the work will be assigned from the author to the society. For more information please visit the Sage Author Gateway.

    3.3 Open access and author archiving

    Journal for the Study of the Old Testament offers optional open access publishing via the Sage Choice programme and Open Access agreements, where authors can publish open access either discounted or free of charge depending on the agreement with Sage. Find out if your institution is participating by visiting Open Access Agreements at Sage. For more information on Open Access publishing options at Sage please visit Sage Open Access. For information on funding body compliance, and depositing your article in repositories, please visit Sage’s Author Archiving and Re-Use Guidelines and Publishing Policies.

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    4. Preparing your manuscript for submission

    4.1 Formatting

    The preferred format for your manuscript is Word. LaTeX files are also accepted. Word and (La)Tex templates are available on the Manuscript Submission Guidelines page of our Author Gateway.

    4.2 Artwork, figures and other graphics

    For guidance on the preparation of illustrations, pictures and graphs in electronic format, please visit Sage’s Manuscript Submission Guidelines.

    Figures supplied in colour will appear in colour online regardless of whether or not these illustrations are reproduced in colour in the printed version. For specifically requested colour reproduction in print, you will receive information regarding the costs from Sage after receipt of your accepted article.

    4.3 Supplementary material

    This journal is able to host additional materials online (e.g. datasets, podcasts, videos, images etc) alongside the full-text of the article. For more information please refer to our guidelines on submitting supplementary files.

    4.4 Journal Style

    Abbreviations
    True abbreviations should end with a full-stop (period), but contractions should not: e.g. repr.; but edn, Mr, Jr, etc. Common abbreviations such as MS, NRSV, BCE/CE, etc., should not be punctuated.

    Biblical Abbreviations
    When quoting biblical references, please give full chapter and verse numbers (do not use f. or ff.).

    Gen., Exod., Lev., Num., Deut., Josh., Judg., Ruth, 1 Sam., 2 Sam., 1 Kgs, 2 Kgs, 1 Chron., 2 Chron., Ezra, Neh., Ps. (pl. Pss.), Prov., Eccl. (or Qoh.), Song (or Cant.), Isa., Jer., Lam., Ezek., Dan., Hos., Joel, Amos, Obad., Jon., Mic., Nah., Hab., Zeph., Hag., Zech., Mal.
    Mt., Mk, Lk., Jn, Acts, Rom., 1 Cor., 2 Cor., Gal., Eph., Phil., Col., 1 Thess., 2 Thess., 1 Tim., 2 Tim., Tit., Phlm., Heb., Jas, 1 Pet., 1 Jn, 2 Jn, 3 Jn, Jude, Rev.

    In the case of biblical and cognate literatures, chapter should be separated by verse with a full stop (.) rather than a colon (:) (1 Sam. 10.8, rather than 1 Sam. 10:8) except in quotations or titles of secondary literature.

    Fonts and Foreign Languages

    Please use SBL Greek and SBL Hebrew font for Greek and Hebrew text: https://www.sbl-site.org/educational/biblicalfonts.aspx. These fonts are free, publicly available and suitable for either Macs or PCs. If your article is accepted, please provide a PDF of the Hebrew or Greek in your article to help ensure accuracy of these languages at typesetting.

    Quotations from other languages (e.g. German, French) should be translated if in the main text; the original may be reproduced in a footnote if it is important.

    Transliteration
    In general, Greek and Hebrew should be given in the appropriate script using the fonts listed above. If occasional words are to be transliterated, the conventions given in the SBL Handbook of Style (5.1 and 5.3) should be followed.

    4.5 Reference style

    Journal for the Study of the Old Testament adheres to the Sage Harvard reference style. View the Sage Harvard guidelines to ensure your manuscript conforms to this reference style.

    If you use EndNote to manage references, you can download the Sage Harvard EndNote output file.

    Every article must contain a list of references.

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    5. Submitting your manuscript

    Before submitting your manuscript, please ensure you carefully read and adhere to all the guidelines and instructions to authors provided below. Manuscripts not conforming to these guidelines may be returned.

    The Journal for the Study of the Old Testament is hosted on Sage Track, a web based online submission and peer review system powered by ScholarOne™ Manuscripts. Please read the Manuscript Submission guidelines below, and then simply visit http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/jsot to login and submit your article online.

    IMPORTANT: Please check whether you already have an account in the system before trying to create a new one. If you have reviewed or authored for the journal in the past year it is likely that you will have had an account created. For further guidance on submitting your manuscript online please visit ScholarOne Online Help.

    All papers must be submitted via the online system. If you would like to discuss your paper prior to submission, please refer to the contact details below.

    Dr Lena-Sofia Tiemeyer, JSOT Co-Editor: lena-sofia.tiemeyer@altutbildning.se

    5.1 ORCID

    As part of our commitment to ensuring an ethical, transparent and fair peer review process Sage is a supporting member of ORCID, the Open Researcher and Contributor ID. ORCID provides a unique and persistent digital identifier that distinguishes researchers from every other researcher, even those who share the same name, and, through integration in key research workflows such as manuscript and grant submission, supports automated linkages between researchers and their professional activities, ensuring that their work is recognized.

    The collection of ORCID IDs from corresponding authors is now part of the submission process of this journal. If you already have an ORCID ID you will be asked to associate that to your submission during the online submission process. We also strongly encourage all co-authors to link their ORCID ID to their accounts in our online peer review platforms. It takes seconds to do: click the link when prompted, sign into your ORCID account and our systems are automatically updated. Your ORCID ID will become part of your accepted publication’s metadata, making your work attributable to you and only you. Your ORCID ID is published with your article so that fellow researchers reading your work can link to your ORCID profile and from there link to your other publications.

    If you do not already have an ORCID ID please follow this link to create one or visit our ORCID homepage to learn more.

    5.2 Information required for completing your submission

    You will be asked to provide contact details and academic affiliations for all co-authors via the submission system and identify who is to be the corresponding author. These details must match what appears on your manuscript. The affiliation listed in the manuscript should be the institution where the research was conducted. If an author has moved to a new institution since completing the research, the new affiliation can be included in a manuscript note at the end of the paper. At this stage please ensure you have included all the required statements and declarations and uploaded any additional supplementary files (including reporting guidelines where relevant).

    5.3 Permissions

    Please also ensure that you have obtained any necessary permission from copyright holders for reproducing any illustrations, tables, figures or lengthy quotations previously published elsewhere. For further information including guidance on fair dealing for criticism and review, please see the Copyright and Permissions page on the Sage Author Gateway.

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    6. On acceptance and publication

    6.1 Sage Production

    Your Sage Production Editor will keep you informed as to your article’s progress throughout the production process. Proofs will be made available to the corresponding author via our editing portal Sage Edit or by email, and corrections should be made directly or notified to us promptly. Authors are reminded to check their proofs carefully to confirm that all author information, including names, affiliations, sequence and contact details are correct, and that Funding and Conflict of Interest statements, if any, are accurate. 

    6.2 Online First publication

    Online First allows final articles (completed and approved articles awaiting assignment to a future issue) to be published online prior to their inclusion in a journal issue, which significantly reduces the lead time between submission and publication. Visit the Sage Journals help page for more details, including how to cite Online First articles.

    6.3 Access to your published article

    Sage provides authors with online access to their final article.

    6.4 Promoting your article

    Publication is not the end of the process! You can help disseminate your paper and ensure it is as widely read and cited as possible. The Sage Author Gateway has numerous resources to help you promote your work. Visit the Promote Your Article page on the Gateway for tips and advice.

    6.5 Proofs

    We will email a PDF of the proofs to the corresponding author.

    6.6 E-Prints and Complimentary Copies

    Sage provides authors with access to a PDF of their final article. For further information please visit Offprints and Reprints on our Journal Author Gateway.

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    7. Further information

    Any correspondence, queries or additional requests for information on the manuscript submission process should be sent to the Journal for the Study of the Old Testament editorial office as follows:

    Dr Lena-Sofia Tiemeyer
    JSOT Co-Editor
    lena-sofia.tiemeyer@altutbildning.se

    The current Book List Editor is Dr Samuel Hildebrandt. For books to be considered for review in the Book List, please contact the editor via email with any advertisement or inquiries at shildebrandt@nazarene.ac.uk.

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