Richard Liantonio, B.A. (Houghton College), M.A. (Nazarene Theological Seminary)

‘The Basis of Divine Pleasure in the Psalms’ (NTC), 2023

Richard began his doctoral thesis in 2015 under the supervision of Dr Dwight Swanson. His research focuses on a cognitive linguistic analysis of happiness language in the Psalms, in comparison with Akkadian, Ugaritic, and other Northwest Semitic literature. Particular attention is paid to the use of metaphor and metonym in the description and expression of emotion. The project seeks to situate language of God’s own happiness within the broader conceptualisation of happiness in the Hebrew Bible and the ancient Near East. Richard is currently a postulant for ordination to the priesthood in the Episcopal Diocese of West Missouri and Adjunct Professor of Hebrew Bible at Saint Paul School of Theology in Leawood, Kansas.