Robert Cargill

Dr. Robert R. Cargill is a biblical studies scholar, classicist, archaeologist, author, and digital humanist in the Departments of Classics and Religious Studies at The University of Iowa. His research includes study in the Qumran and the Dead Sea Scrolls, literary criticism of the Bible and the Pseudepigrapha, and the Ancient Near East. He has appeared as an expert on numerous television documentaries and specials and is an advocate for public higher education.

CHILDHOOD
Dr. Robert R. Cargill was born in Van Nuys, California to Leonard and Sharon Cargill. His family soon relocated to Madera, California, a small farm town in central California that they called home for 15 years. Dr. Cargill has experienced every level of public education in California. He attended John Adams Elementary, Thomas Jefferson Junior High, and Madera High School. At age 17, his family moved to nearby Fresno, California, where he graduated from Bullard High School. He turned down undergraduate admission offers to attend UC Berkeley, USC, and Pepperdine, choosing instead to attend local community college. By working the graveyard shift at a local Walgreens, Dr. Cargill put himself through Fresno City College, where he earned his A.A. degree and won a state championship in 1992 as a catcher with the baseball team. He then transferred to California State University, Fresno, where he pursued an education in the natural sciences. He followed a pre-medical curriculum and earned a Bachelor's degree in Human Physiology.

GRADUATE EDUCATION
Dr. Cargill then accepted the J.P. Sanders Scholarship to attend Pepperdine University, where he earned a Master of Science degree in Ministry and his seminary degree, the Master of Divinity. While studying biblical studies at Pepperdine, he began studying archaeology and ancient Near Eastern cultures under Dr. Randall Chesnutt and Dr. John F. Wilson. Also while at Pepperdine, he experienced the birth of his daughter, Talitha Joy. Dr. Cargill returned to Pepperdine in 2002 and taught courses in Hebrew Bible and New Testament at Pepperdine University. In 2004, he was hired by Academy Award winning actress Nicole Kidman to teach her history and religion of the Middle East. He then accepted a fellowship to attend the University of California, Los Angeles, and earned an M.A. in Ancient Near Eastern Civilizations and his Ph.D. under Dr. William Schniedewind in the UCLA Department of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures, with an emphasis in Second Temple period archaeology and biblical studies. His dissertation work focused on the archaeological remains of Khirbet Qumran, the site associated with the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls.

CAREER
Dr. Cargill is Assistant Professor of Classics and Religious Studies at the University of Iowa with an emphasis on the Digital Humanities. He has previously taught at Pepperdine, Azusa Pacific, Portland State, and UCLA, and has made some of his classes available to the public for free. He served as the Instructional Technology Coordinator for the UCLA Center for Digital Humanities from 2009-2011, where he oversaw the integration of technology into higher education classrooms and humanities research. Dr. Cargill was a Cotsen Institute of Archaeology Research Associate at UCLA, and the Chief Architect and Designer of the Qumran Visualization Project, a real-time virtual reconstruction of the site of Qumran.

Dr. Cargill's first book, "Qumran through (Real) Time: A Virtual Reconstruction of Qumran and the Dead Sea Scrolls," examines the settlement of Khirbet Qumran using new technological approaches in the Digital Humanities including digital archaeological reconstruction and virtual reality. Dr. Cargill has appeared as an expert on numerous documentaries and television shows, including recently hosting the National Geographic special, “Writing the Dead Sea Scrolls." He regularly lectures on topics concerning archaeology, biblical studies, Qumran, the Dead Sea Scrolls, religious sects in the Second Temple period, linguistic ideology, and the digital humanities.

PERSONAL
Dr. Cargill was married to his partner, Roslyn, on March 20, 2010. He has a daughter, Talitha Joy, and a son, MacLaren Grey, and resides in Iowa City, IA. He is a Mensan and spends much of his spare time reading and hiking.

ARCHAEOLOGICAL EXPERIENCE
Dr. Cargill has traveled extensively throughout Europe, Central and South America, and the Middle East. Dr. Cargill began his archaeological career in 1999 as a Square Supervisor in the excavations at Banias, Israel (Golan Heights) with Dr. Vassilios Tzaferis and Dr. John F. Wilson. The next year he served as Area Supervisor at Banias. In 2004, he began work as a Square Supervisor for the excavations at nearby Omrit, Israel with Dr. Andy Overman. Most recently, Dr. Cargill participated in the excavations at Hatzor, Israel in 2006 with Dr. Amnon Ben-Tor. Dr. Cargill is a Cotsen Institute of Archaeology Research Associate at UCLA.

POLITICS
Politically, Dr. Cargill is a moderate independent and is unaffiliated with any American political party. He describes himself as a social progressive and a fiscal conservative. He is an ardent supporter of the separation of church and state and the separation of archaeology and religion. He has argued that science (and specifically archaeology) should not be used for evangelistic purposes, and regularly critiques those who attempt to use what he terms "pseudoscience" to make religious claims. He has stated that Christian insistence upon the "inerrancy and infallibility" of the Bible and a literal interpretation of the biblical text is greatly harming modern Christianity. He does not view stories of a biblical six-day creation and a Great Flood as historical. Dr. Cargill has written extensively in favor of gender equity within the church and against California Proposition 8, arguing that the state should not prohibit homosexual couples from marrying.

DIGITAL HUMANITIES AND BLOGGING
Dr. Cargill worked for the UCLA Center for Digital Humanities as the Instructional Technology Coordinator. He is an avid blogger, writing at his official blog, robertcargill.com. He is Chair of the American Schools of Oriental Research Media Relations Committee, and Chair of the Society of Biblical Literature Blogging and Online Publication Steering Committee. He has published and presented professional papers on issues dealing with blogging, online publication, and the future of instructional technology.

MEMBERSHIP IN PROFESSIONAL ORGANIZATIONS
Dr. Cargill is a professional member of:
Society of Biblical Literature (Section chair)
American Schools of Oriental Research (Committee Chair)
Archaeological Institute of America (Member)
Association for Jewish Studies (Member)
Israel Exploration Society (Member)

He is also involved in other social and environmental organizations including:
American Mensa
National Geographic Society
Global Green USA
Ducks Unlimited
Sierra Club
Santa Monica Mountain Trails Council
and is a supporter of 89.3 KPCC – Southern California Public Radio and NPR.

RESEARCH INTERESTS
Research interests include the archaeology of Qumran, the Dead Sea Scrolls, virtual reality, digital modeling, archaeology of the Second Temple Period, Hebrew and Aramaic, literary criticism, biblical studies, the site of Banias, Israel (ancient Caesarea Philippi), the Bar Kokhba Rebellion, and classical Judean numismatics.