John is Postgraduate Lead at Laidlaw College, and teaches Old Testament and Biblical Interpretation. He grew up in West Auckland. After completing his Bachelor of Ministries at Laidlaw (BCNZ) in 1997 he was a pastor at Lincoln Road Bible Chapel for four years. In preparation for missionary service John completed his Master of Theological Studies through Tyndale Graduate School of Theology in 2004. John and his family were missionaries in Myanmar for 12 years (2005-2017) where John taught Biblical Hebrew and Old Testament, and was head of Biblical Studies at the Myanmar Evangelical Graduate School of Theology. He completed his PhD through Laidlaw College/Auckland University of Technology while in Myanmar. 

PUBLICATIONS

Peer reviewed

Forthcoming: 

John de Jong and Allan Bell, “The Application of Bakhtin’s Incorporated Genre in Biblical Studies”, in Stan Porter, ed., The Literary–Linguistic Analysis of the New Testament: The Enduring Legacy of Russian Formalism and the Prague Linguistics Circle (tentative title), to be published in the Linguistic Biblical Studies series with Brill. 

2024

“Adoniram Judson’s Burmese Bible: Dependency and Development.” Church History Vol.92 (4): 822–44. 

2023

“‘I Have Nothing Yet that I Can Venture to Use’: Adoniram Judson’s Rejection of James Chater’s Gospel of Matthew in Burmese,” The Bible Translator Vol.74(2): 284-298.

2022

“Early Burmese Versions of the Lord’s Prayer,” Lamp: MEGST Journal of Christian Thought and Praxis Vol.2: 1-21.

2020    

“Micah 7—The Other Side of Protest,” in Lamp: MEGST Journal of Christian Thought and Praxis Vol. 1 (August 2020): 1–8.   

John de Jong and Csilla Saysell (eds.) Holding Forth the Word of Life: Essays in Honor of Tim Meadowcroft. ACT Monographs (Wipf and Stock: Eugene, 2020)

2019

“A Nineteenth Century New England Exegete abroad: Adoniram Judson and the Burmese Bible.” Harvard Theological Review 112(3): 319-339.

2018

“Textual Criticism, the Textus Receptus, and Adoniram Judson’s Burmese New Testaments.” Pacific Journal of Baptist Research 13(2), 51-60.

Co-edited with Csilla Saysell. Essays in Recognition of the Retirement of Rev Dr Timothy Meadowcroft, Pacific Journal of Baptist Research 13(2).

“Sanctified or dedicated? הקדישׁ in Zephaniah 1:7.” Vetus Testamentum 68(1): 94-101.

2017

“Adoniram Judson’s translation of Zephaniah – Correction.” The Bible Translator 68(2): 209-210. “

An analysis of Judson’s translation of Zephaniah.” The Bible Translator 68(1): 64-87.

2010

"A ‘sin offering’ crouching at the door? Translation lessons from an exegetical fossil in the Judson Bible." The Bible Translator 61(2): 89-92.

Popular

2019

“Faith Crossing Boundaries.” GC3 Connect Issue 6, 2-3.

“Mission from Everywhere to Everywhere.” GC3 Connect Issue 5, 2-3.

“Partnership in Mission.” GC3 Connect Issue 4, 2-3.

“Entering a Culture for Jesus’ Sake.” GC3 Connect Issue 3, 2-3.

“Mission and Money.” GC3 Connect Issue 2, 2-3.

“The Changing Face of Missions.” GC3 Connect Issue 1, 2-3.

2018

“Hearts and Minds: Reflections on Theological Education in Yangon and Auckland.”Stimulus 25(2).

“Returning from and to Mission.” Encounter Edition 27.

CONFERENCE PAPERS

2020

John de Jong and Julia van den Brink. “Ancient Language Acquisition as a New Approach to Teaching Biblical Languages,” 30 November 2020, Aotearoa New Zealand Association of Biblical Studies, Christchurch.

2019

23 November 2019, “Zephaniah reads Jeremiah”, SBL Annual Meeting 2019, San Diego, November 23-26.

3 July 2019: Australia New Zealand Association of Theological Schools Conference, Auckland. “Zephaniah 3:5 as Incorporated Genre.”

28 June 2019: Trajectories in the Interpretation of Scripture, Dunedin. “Texts in New Contexts: Zephaniah Reads Jeremiah.”

2018

28 June 2018: Sociolinguistics Symposium TwentyTwo, Auckland. “Intertextuality and biblical interpretation.”

2017

4/5 December 2017: Aotearoa/New Zealand Association of Biblical Studies, Otago. “A 19th century New England exegete abroad: Adoniram Judson and the Burmese Bible.”

10 August 2017: SBL International Meeting, Berlin. “The People of God as the central theme of Zephaniah.”

2016

07 July 2016: SBL International Meeting, Seoul. “The function of Zephaniah 1.2-3.”

06 July 2016: SBL International Meeting, Seoul. “An analysis of Adoniram Judson’s Burmese translation of Zephaniah.”

2015

08 December 2015: Aotearoa NZ Association of Biblical Studies, Auckland. “The people of God and the peoples in Zephaniah.”

OTHER

2020

John de Jong and Rebecca de Jong, GCiM [Global Connections in Mission] 360o Review: Report Written by John and Rebecca de Jong. Presented to the GC3 Board on 21 November 2020.