David Starling appointed Professor of the University

Congratulations to Professor David Starling appointed a Professor of the University of Divinity by the University Council on 2 December 2020. Professor Starling is currently the Chief Academic Officer at Morling College. He is noted for his outstanding contribution to Learning and Teaching, Research, and Engagement in Church and Community.

The Vice-Chancellor, Professor Peter Sherlock said:

Professor Starling has made an extraordinary contribution to biblical scholarship at the University of Divinity and in Australia. I am delighted by this richly deserved recognition of his commitment to transformative engagement, teaching and research.”

About the appointment, Professor Starling said:

I am honoured by the announcement, and deeply thankful for the continuing opportunity that my work at Morling gives me to work with such a dedicated team of teachers and researchers.”

The citation for the appointment reads:

Professor Starling has made an outstanding contribution to Learning and Teaching and Research in the area of Biblical Studies and Theology. His distinctive contributions arise from the approach to biblical hermeneutics developed in his PhD and subsequent books Not My People: Gentiles as Exiles in Pauline Hermeneutics and Hermeneutics as Apprenticeship. The way of reading Scripture that he advocates and models in these works approaches the task as an apprenticeship to the hermeneutical practices of the biblical writers themselves, in conversation with the interpretive tradition and the missional context of the reading community. As a result, David Starling’s biblical scholarship offers theological resources for diverse contexts within and beyond the academy, including local congregational life and a wide variety of other missional settings. His work is described by reviewers as ‘a searching blend of rigorous exegesis and insightful application’. Two edited volumes, The Gender Conversation and Theology and the Future, have each received wide international appreciation as offering new directions both for the church and society.