Professor Coblentz Bautch researches and writes in the area of biblical studies. She examines the history and religions of Israel during the Persian, Hellenistic and Roman periods, nascent Christianity. Professor Coblentz Bautch is especially intrigued by pseudepigraphic, deuterocanonical and apocalyptic texts.

Current projects and publications take up 1 Maccabees and Aramaic Enoch. See, for example, “Rulers, Rivals and 1 Maccabees,” Biblische Notizen 200 (2024): 77-93; “Editions, Recensions and Literary Creativity: The Evidence from Aramaic Enoch,” pp. 141-56 in The Aramaic Books of Enoch and Related Literature from Qumran, ed. H. Drawnel (JSJSup 216; Leiden: Brill, 2024); “The Law and the Prophet: Reading 1 Maccabees in the Days of John Hyrcanus,” pp. 183-203 in Torah in Early Jewish Imaginations, eds. A. Feldman and T. Sandoval (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2023); “The Visionary’s View: Otherworldly Motifs and Their Use/Reuse in Texts of Qumran and Nag Hammadi,” pp. 388-408 in The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Nag Hammadi Codices, eds. D. Burns and M. Goff (Leiden: Brill, 2022).

Past publications explore geographical traditions (for example, “Spatiality and Apocalyptic Literature,” Hebrew Bible and Ancient Israel 5: [2016]: 273-288 and A Study of the Geography of 1 Enoch 17-19 [JSJSup; Brill, 2003]), angelology (The Watchers in Jewish and Christian Traditions [Fortress, 2014] and Fallen Angels Traditions: Second Temple Developments and the Reception History [CBQMS 53, 2014], edited with colleagues), and gender (“Amplified Roles, Idealized Depictions: Women in the Book of Jubilees,” pp. 338-52 in Enoch and the Mosaic Torah: The Evidence of Jubilees, eds. G. Boccaccini and G. Ibba [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2009] and “What Becomes of the Angels’ ‘Wives’? A Text Critical Study of 1 En. 19:2,” Journal of Biblical Literature 125 [2006]: 766-80).  

She has also guest-edited thematic issues of juried journals (Biblische Notizen, Journal of Ancient Judaism, and Henoch). Further, Professor Coblentz Bautch has edited with colleagues two Festschriften: A Teacher for All Generations: Essays in Honor of James C. VanderKam (2 vols; JSJSup 153; Brill, 2011) and The Figure of Jesus in History and Theology: Essays in Honor of John Meier (CBQ Imprints, 2020).