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Dr Kylie Crabbe

Director of Graduate Research Programs
Senior Research Fellow Biblical and Early Christian Studies

Areas of expertise: Gospels and Acts (New Testament and non-canonical); Second Temple Judaism; apocalypses; historiography; reception history; disability studies; feminist biblical interpretation

ORCID ID: 0000-0002-5223-4138

Phone: +61 3 9230 8397

Email: kylie.crabbe@acu.edu.au

Location: ACU Melbourne Campus

BA (Melb.), BTheol, AdvDipMin, MTheol (MCD), DPhil (Oxon.)

Kylie Crabbe is a Senior Research Fellow in Biblical and Early Christian Studies. After her undergraduate studies (in Criminology, Psychology, and Theology at the University of Melbourne and Melbourne College of Divinity) she undertook a Master of Theology (in New Testament Studies), was ordained Minister of the Word in the Uniting Church in Australia in 2010, and engaged in congregational ministry in Melbourne. Following doctoral study at the University of Oxford, Kylie was Lecturer in Theology at Trinity College, Oxford, from 2015-2017, with additional responsibilities as Instructor in New Testament Greek for the Faculty of Theology and Religion at Oxford University (2016), Assistant Welfare Dean at Trinity College, Oxford (2017), and Editorial Assistant for the Journal of Theological Studies (2013-2016). She then began work as Research Fellow at Australian Catholic University in late 2017.

Kylie's doctoral research explored the ways in which ancient writers explain negative experience through the structuring of history—including how their understandings of the end of history shapes their hope and politics in the present. The resultant first book, Luke/Acts and the End of History (De Gruyter, 2019), considers these (much contested) themes in Luke and Acts, in comparison with diverse Jewish and non-Jewish contemporaneous texts. Kylie's current work addresses questions of disability and identity in early Christian texts, with a focus on New Testament texts, Apocryphal Acts, early Christian apocalypses, and the Apostolic Fathers. In addition, Kylie is working on a smaller project which considers the intellectual and social context of post-war German biblical scholarship—particularly that of Hans Conzelmann, which continues to dominate Lukan scholarship. 

While at ACU Kylie has been involved in numerous collaborative research events. For instance, as part of the Texts, Traditions, and Early Christian Identities project, in 2019 she co-organised a conference with Prof John Barclay at ACU’s Rome campus, entitled: Jewish Traditions and the Social Imagination of the Early Christians (the papers will be published as a collected volume with Bloomsbury in 2021). Kylie worked with a multidisciplinary team across the IRCI to hold a 2019 symposium on Affect and the History of Emotions in Religion, Philosophy, and Politics.

In both Oxford and Melbourne Kylie has taught in a wide variety of New Testament and related areas, including Gospels, Pauline Literature, Second Temple Judaism, biblical Greek, Hebrew Bible, and early Christian theology. Kylie is also the Director of Graduate Research Programs in the Institute. She is available to supervise graduate students, and welcomes inquiries from students wishing to pursue research into the texts of the New Testament, their Graeco-Roman, Jewish, and early Christian literary environment(s), and the texts of Second Temple Judaism, as well as other hermeneutical approaches such as reception history, disability studies, or feminist interpretation. Her recent and current doctoral students have worked in feminist biblical interpretation, and in images of hell in Matthew. All prospective graduate students are strongly encouraged to contact Kylie by email prior to submitting their application directly to the University.

Academia Profile

Select publications

• 2019 Luke/Acts and the End of History. Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für die neutestamentliche Wissenschaft 238. Berlin: De Gruyter.
• (Forthcoming)“The Blind and the Lame”: An Adapted Category in Early Christian Communal Self-understanding.” In The Reception of Jewish Traditions in the Social Construction of Early Christianity. Edited by John Barclay and Kylie Crabbe. Receptions of Jesus in the First Three Centuries. London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark.
• (Forthcoming) ‘Gospels and Acts.’ In The Biblical World. Revd. ed. Edited by Katharine Dell. Routledge, Taylor & Francis.
• (Forthcoming) ‘The Generation of Iron and the Final Stumbling Block: The Present Time in Hesiod’s Works and Days 106–201 and Barnabas 4.’ In The Eras of Empires. Edited by Loren Stuckenbruck and Andrew Perrin. Leuven: Brill.
• (Forthcoming) ‘Oneness, Unity, and Josephus’s Theological Politics.’ In One God, One People: Oneness, Unity, and Christian Origins. Edited by Stephen C. Barton and Andrew J. Byers. SBLRBS. Atlanta: SBL Press.
• 2016 ‘Accepting Prophecy: Paul’s Response to Agabus with Insights from Valerius Maximus and Josephus.’ Journal for the Study of the New Testament 39.2 : 188-208.
• 2015 ‘Being Found Fighting Against God: Luke’s Gamaliel and Josephus on Human Responses to Divine Providence.’ Zeitschrift für die neutestamentliche Wissenschaft 106.1 : 21-39.

Projects

• Texts, Traditions, and Early Christian Identities (with KU Leuven and Durham University).

Accolades and awards

• 2016 James William Squire Bursary
• 2015 The Revd Alan Stockbridge Award
• 2015 Crewdson Trust Award
• 2012-2015 Clarendon Fund and Keble College Sloane-Robinson Scholarship

Public engagement

• Guest on the podcast: By the Well, on Isaiah 35, disability, Advent, and more, December 2019.
• “Discipleship and Hope in Mark,” Short Course in Theology public lecture, ACU Melbourne, March 2018;
• Keynote presenter, Clergy Consultation, (a week-long biblical studies intensive for selected Anglican and Methodist clergy), at St George’s House, Windsor Castle, in October 2016;
• Keynote biblical studies presenter at the School of Discipleship in Sydney July 2013;
• Theological Reflector for the General Meeting of the Synod of Victoria and Tasmania in September 2011

Appointments and affiliations

• Associate Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, UK.