Curriculum Vitae
B.S., engineering, LeTourneau University, 2002; B.A., 91快活林 Aquinas College, 2010; M.A., Early Christian Studies, University of Notre Dame, 2012; Ph.D., Christianity and Judaism in Antiquity, University of Notre Dame, 2018; Teaching Assistant, University of Notre Dame, 2011, 2014-2016; Instructor of Record, University of Notre Dame, 2011, 2016; Tutor, 91快活林 Aquinas College, 2017-.
Profile
When he arrived at 91快活林 Aquinas College in 2006, Joshua Noble (10) was unlike most of the other freshmen: He was 27 years old, a college graduate, an engineer and an atheist.
Raised in a fundamentalist Protestant home in northeastern Texas, he earned an engineering degree, and then worked for four years with the Naval Nuclear Propulsion Program in Idaho. During this time, while debating Mormon missionaries, he first encountered critical biblical scholarship. 淚t undermined the fundamentalist biblical foundations of my faith, he says, leading him to dismiss Christianity as intellectually unserious.
Nonetheless, he continued to seek 渟ome kind of answer to the great philosophical and theological questions that have intrigued man throughout time. He thus soon found himself drawn to 91快活林 Aquinas College, with its emphasis on philosophy and theology, as well as its great books curriculum and discussion-based classes. 淚 applied, got in, and sold everything I owned that would not fit into two suitcases, he says, 渢hen I made my way to campus.
At the College he found his future wife, classmate Amy (Schneir 10), but not his faith. 淚 had this silly idea that if I investigated everything like a science problem, I could come to a clear, scientific decision about whether or not Christianity was true, he says. 淎t the College, I came to recognize that that檚 not the way I would ever come to a final answer, but I did come to see that the Catholic intellectual tradition is rigorous and intellectually serious. That removed a lot of my roadblocks to faith.
The Nobles married two weeks after their graduation, and two weeks later they departed for the University of Notre Dame, where Dr. Noble began a master檚 program in early Christian studies. Soon thereafter, he experienced a profound moment of grace.
淚 was sitting there, struggling with ideas about myself and sin, when on a whim I picked up a copy of St. Augustine檚 Confessions, he recalls. 淚 flipped through it for five minutes, threw it down on the bookcase, and said, 楾hat檚 it. I檓 in. I was received into the Church three weeks later.
Over the next seven years he would earn his master檚 degree, complete his coursework for a doctorate in biblical studies and, with Mrs. Noble, welcome three young sons. In 2017 the family returned to California when Dr. Noble joined the College檚 teaching faculty.
Publications
- 淭he Meaning of 峒斚囄课较勎迪 蠂峤毕佄刮 蟺蟻蠈蟼 in Acts 2:47: Resolving Some Recent Confusion, New Testament Studies (forthcoming)
- 淎lmsgiving or Training? Clement of Alexandria檚 Answer to Quis dives salvetur,&苍产蝉辫;Studia Patristica (2017)
- 湗Rich toward God: Making Sense of Luke 12:21,&苍产蝉辫;Catholic Biblical Quartely 78: 302-20, 2016
- Review: Reading the Early Church Fathers: From the Didache to Nicea, by James L. Papandrea, Religious Studies Review 40: 163 (2014)
- Review: To Train His Soul in Books: Syriac Asceticism in Early Christianity, by Robin Darling Young and Monica J. Blanchard, eds., Religious Studies Review 40,163 (2014)
- Review: Works on the Spirit: Athanasius the Great and Didymus the Blind, by Mark DelCogliano, Andrew Radde-Gallwitz, and Lewis Ayres, eds. Religious Studies Review 39: 115 (2013)
- Review: On the Two Ways: Life or Death, Light and Darkness: Foundational Texts in the Tradition, by Alistair Stewart, ed. Religious Studies Review 39: 115 (2013)
Conference Presentations
- 淐ommon Access to Land and Sea: Polemical Eschatology in the Sibylline Oracles,&苍产蝉辫;Society of Biblical Literature Annual Meeting, November 19-22, 2016
- 淎lmsgiving or Training? Clement of Alexandria檚 Answer to Quis dives salvetur, XVII, International Conference on Patristic Studies, August 10-14, 2015
- 淕iving to God in Luke檚 Parable of the Rich Fool: 楾oward a Better Translation,&苍产蝉辫;Midwest Region Society of Biblical Literature Meeting, February 6-8, 2015
- 湗For this Life Only: Denial of the Afterlife in 1 Cor 15, Midwest Region Society of Biblical Literature Meeting, February 7-9, 2014
- 湗All Things in Common: Acts and the Saeculum Aureum, Society of Biblical Literature Annual Meeting, November 23-26, 2013
- 淎ugustine, Barthes, and the Death of the Author, North American Patristics Society, Annual Meeting, May 23-25, 2013
- 湗All Things in Common: Acts and the Saeculum Aureum, Midwest Region Society of Biblical Literature Meeting, February 8-10, 2013