Leslie J. Hoppe OFM (born 22 September 1944) is an American Franciscan priest and Old Testament scholar with a focus on Deuteronomy and Deuteronomic literature and is an expert in biblical studies. He is Carroll Stuhlmueller Distinguished Professor of Old Testament Studies at Catholic Theological Union in Chicago and the general editor of the refereed theological journal Catholic Biblical Quarterly.[1]
Between 2015-2016, he served as president of the Catholic Biblical Association and has also served as the president of the Chicago Society of Biblical Research and was visiting professor at Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary, Studium Biblicum Franciscanum, and Seabury-Western Theological Seminary. He has served on the editorial board of The Bible Today and Old Testament Abstracts, previously being the general editor of the former.
Hoppe first received his MA in theology from the Aquinas Institute of Theology and then went on to receive a PhD in religion from Northwestern University.[1]
Hoppe joined and has been on the faculty of Catholic Theological Union (CTU) since 1981. Since then, he has authored many books on the Old Testament and biblical archaeology and has served in many archaeological projects in Upper Galilee as well as being the director of the fall study program of CTU in Jerusalem and lead its first Holy Land Pilgrimage.[2] He has written a number of scholarly articles and books, including The Holy City: Jerusalem in the Theology of the Old Testament (2000) and was one of the archaeologists to work on the hypothesis of a House of PeteratCapernaum.[3] He has written for America Magazine[4] and has outlined his views on the Bible in an interview with US Catholic magazine.[5] He has been noted by the National Catholic Register for his support of the Dei verbum to Catholic life and scripture,[6] and believes the question of archaeology is separate from belief in the Bible.[7]