Sung Min Park

Dr. Sung Min Park is a scholar whose research integrates biblical studies and historical sociolinguistics. He received his PhD from McMaster Divinity College and has examined multilingualism, language ideology, prestige language, indexicality, and social identity in the eastern provinces of the Roman Empire. His doctoral research focused on sociolinguistics and the Book of Acts while also engaging with the broader sociolinguistic ecology and language policies of the Greco-Roman world. His monograph, The Prestige Language of Christianity in the Book of Acts: Historical Sociolinguistic Approaches to Multilingualism, was published by Brill in 2025.

Dr. Park has collaborated with historical sociolinguists on a range of interdisciplinary research and publication projects. He regularly presents his research at international conferences and scholarly societies, including SBL, ETS, HiSoN, NARNiHS, and LSA. He organized the SBL program unit “Historical Sociolinguistics and the New Testament” and serves as a steering committee member.

His book chapter “Rethinking the Language Policy for the Eastern Provinces of the First-Century Roman Empire” was published in Language Ideology, Policy, and Practices: Focus on Minoritized Languages Past and Present. His article “Sacred Language Ideology for Nomina Sacra between the Second and Fifth Centuries CE” appeared in the Journal of Historical Sociolinguistics, while “Peter’s Code Choice in the Pentecost Sermon: A Historical Sociolinguistic Approach to the Prestige Religious Language of the Jerusalem Church” was published in the Journal of Greco-Roman Christianity and Judaism. More recently, he has published “Historical Sociolinguistic Approaches to Identity Contextualization in the Corinthian Epistles” and “The Indexical Fields of the Galilean Dialect of Aramaic in Peter’s Denials of Jesus in Matthew 26:73,” extending his research into Pauline language style and identity contextualization, as well as the indexical meanings associated with Galilean Aramaic.

Dr. Park currently serves as a Research Fellow at McMaster Divinity College, where he continues his research and writing. He has also served as an Adjunct Assistant Professor at McMaster Divinity College, teaching New Testament Ecclesiology: First-Century Christianity in a Multilingual and Multicultural Environment. He is co-authoring Historical Sociolinguistics for Biblical Studies with Stanley E. Porter and co-editing Sociolinguistics and the New Testament with Porter.