Departmental homepageProfessor MacDonald studied Theology and Hebrew at Cambridge before completing his doctorate at the University of Durham. After holding positions in the University of St Andrews and Göttingen University in Germany, he returned to Cambridge in 2013 to teach Hebrew Bible in the University of Cambridge.
Professor MacDonald teaches all aspects of the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament and classical Hebrew. In the Faculty of Divinity he contributes to papers on David, the Exile, and intermediate and advanced Hebrew, as well as specialist papers on the Pentateuch and the Persian Period.
His research focuses on all matters related to the Israelite cult, including sanctuaries, rituals and cultic officials. He is currently working on the texts about the Tabernacle, history of the Israelite priesthood and the dynamics of ritual innovation in ancient Israel and early Judaism.
The Making of the Tabernacle and the Construction of Priestly Hegemony (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2023)
(ed. with A.R. Mein and M.A. Collins) The Mobilization of Biblical Scholarship in the First World War (Library of Hebrew Bible/Old Testament Studies/ Scriptural Traces; London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2019)
(ed. with A.R. Mein and M.A. Collins) The Mobilization of Biblical Scholarship in the First World War (Library of Hebrew Bible/Old Testament Studies/ Scriptural Traces; London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2019)
Priestly Rule: Polemic and Biblical Interpretation in Ezekiel 44 (Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für die Alttestamentliche Wissenschaft, 476; Berlin: de Gruyter, 2015)
