Smith Lecture Autumn 2026: Professor Katharine Dell Woman Wisdom 'at the beginning': A wisdom framework for biblical creation theology.

The Smith Lectures commemorate Agnes Lewis and Margaret Dunlop (both née Smith), twin sisters from Ayrshire, whose contribution to Divinity led to the award of honorary doctorates in 1901 by the University. Brilliant linguists, intrepid explorers, and meticulous scholars, they discovered and catalogued an astonishing number of ancient manuscripts, most famously the Syriac Sinaiticus.

Each semester, an outstanding female scholar from any subdiscipline of Divinity is invited to St Andrews to deliver the Smith Lecture in their memory, and to meet informally with female students who might be interested in pursuing an academic career in the discipline.

Professor Katharine Dell is Director of Studies in Theology, Religion and Philosophy of Religion at St Catharine's. Her research interest is the wisdom literature of the Old Testament and she has written monographs on each of the main wisdom books of Proverbs, Job and Ecclesiastes as well as an introduction for students entitled “Get Wisdom, Get Insight!” (2000). She has also written an introductory handbook (her ‘coffee table' book) to the Old Testament as a whole entitled “Opening the Old Testament” (Wiley Blackwell, 2008). She is pleased also to have collaborated with one of our Honorary Fellows — Professor Arnoldus Blix — on an article on Job – “The Norwegian philosopher Peter Wessel Zapffe (1899–1990) and the Book of Job” in Transactions of the Royal Norwegian Society of Sciences and Letters 2022 (1), 5-25 — which shows the fruitfulness of cross-Fellowship discussions and interactions.

She is a full Professor now, having been teaching in Cambridge for nearly 30 years! She came to Cambridge from Oxford where she was an undergraduate and graduate and where she had her first job at Ripon College, Cuddesdon, teaching ordinands. She joined the college in 1996 as DOS and served as a Tutor for many years, also as Fellows' Steward. She is now President of the College for 2022–25. She teaches across the Old Testament syllabus in the Faculty of Divinity, has many research students who come from around the world to work with her and she supervises St Catharine's undergraduates in their Old Testament options.

Professor Katharine Dell is married with a son and three cats. She is a semi-professional singer in the London Bach Choir and received an LCM Diploma for singing in 2016. She is also a school governor. She is particularly proud of the ‘wisdom window' in the chapel in St Catharine's — an idea that she initiated — and has used the image in her Cambridge Companion to wisdom literature (CUP)