Biography
Dr. Jeffrey R. Chadwick serves at BYU as Jerusalem Center Professor of Archaeology and Near Eastern Studies, and also as Religious Education Professor of Church History and Jewish Studies (in the Department of Church History and Doctrine). At BYU and within the CES his Religious Education teaching emphases include the Bible (Old and New Testament), the Book of Mormon, Church History and Christian History, Judaism, and Islam. He is also host of the annual BYU Passover Seder each spring, one of the largest model seder programs in the United States.
Jeff Chadwick was born and raised in Ogden, Utah, and graduated from world-famous Ben Lomond High School. He served a two-year LDS mission in West Berlin and West Germany (in the old Hamburg mission) in the mid-1970s. He and his wife, Kim, are the parents of six adult children and a dozen grandchildren. Dr. Chadwick earned a BA from Weber State College (1978) with a major in Political Science and a minors in German and Police Science. He earned a MA degree from Brigham Young University (1984) in International and Area Studies, focusing on Middle Eastern Politics and Ancient Near Eastern Studies (Historical Geography). He also did graduate work in Israel at Tel Aviv University and at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem while completing his Ph.D. at the University of Utah Middle East Center in Archaeology and Anthropology, specializing in the archaeology of the Land of Israel, with a minor in Hebrew, Egyptian, and Aramaic languages. He taught for the Church Educational System for twenty years in the LDS Seminaries (1980s) and the Institutes of Religion at Weber State and Utah State University (1990s). He has been affiliated with the BYU Jerusalem Center as a faculty member for forty years, since 1982 (before the current Center was built). Joined by his wife Kim, he has taught Ancient Scripture and Near Eastern Studies courses in twenty-three different student programs at the BYU Jerusalem Center between 1982 and 2015, travelling widely with his Jerusalem Center students in field study all over Israel, Jordan, Egypt, and Turkey. He'll be returning to teach at the Jerusalem Center for 2024-2025 as soon as the Gaza war situation permits.
Dr. Chadwick has also researched, surveyed, and excavated at several historical and biblical sites in Israel, including Jerusalem and Hebron (Tell er-Rumeide) in the 1980s, Ekron (Tel Miqne) in the 1990s, and at Gath of the Philistines (Tell es-Safi) since 2001 and for the last twenty years. He is currently senior field archaeologist with the Tell es-Safi/Gath Archaeological Project in Israel (Aren M. Maeir, Bar-Ilan University, Project Director), where he directs excavations in Area F in the "upper city" and in Area D in the "lower city" of the ancient Philistine capital city. He is also director of the American Expedition to Hebron (AEH) Publication Project and associate member of the original AEH excavation staff. He has served as a member of the board of trustees of the American Schools of Oriental Research (ASOR) and is a senior fellow at the W. F. Albright Institute of Archaeological Research in Jerusalem. He is the author of three books, editor of a fourth, and has published more than seventy academic articles, chapters, and studies.
Courses Taught: Near Eastern Studies (NES 136, 326, 336), Archaeology courses (NES 101, 398), Ancient Near Eastern History (ANES 239), Ceramic Typology of Israel (ANES 392R), Writings of Isaiah (RELA 392), Old Testament (RELA 301, 302, 303), New Testament (RELA 211, 212, 213, 311, 411, 511), Book of Mormon (121, 122), Book of Mormon in the Land of Jerusalem (NES 101R, RELA 392R), Survey of Judaism and Islam (RELC 357), Survey of Judaism (RELC 355), Survey of Christianity (RELC 352), Survey of World Religions (RELC 351), and the Scattering and Gathering of Israel and the Latter-day Restoration (RELC 393R).
Areas of Research: Archaeology of Israel, Archaeology of the Near East, Archaeology of the Bible, Judaism and the Jewish People, Early Mediterranean Christianity, Islamic History and Doctrine, Hebrew Bible, New Testament, the Book of Mormon
Languages: Hebrew (modern and ancient), German, Aramaic (ancient), Arabic, Greek (ancient), Egyptian (ancient), and Mayan (southern classic).