Deane Galbraith

Ngā Puhi, Te Rarawa

Dr Deane Galbraith 'was born in Ashburton and raised in Timaru, where he attended Gleniti Primary School. On moving to Auckland, he attended Kelson Boys High School and then completed a BCom/LLB at the University of Auckland. He worked in Auckland as a taxation consultant for Coopers & Lybrand and then Pricewaterhouse Coopers. Dr Galbraith completed a PhD in ancient Judaism at Ōtākou Whakaihu Waka/ The University of Otago, the first PhD in the field of bibical studies by a Māori. He subsequently took up a position teaching Religious Studies in the Religion Programme. He teaches courses in ancient religion, Māori spirituality, and contemporary conspiracy theories. His primary academic research interests include Māori religion and spirituality, conspiracy theories involving Māori, and ancient Judaism. He is also the inaugural Māngai Māori and former President of the Aotearoa New Zealand Association for Biblical Studies (ANZABS).'

Biographical sources

  • Email from Dr Galbraith, April 2, 2026.

    Non-fiction

  • “‘Would you condemn me that you might be justified?’ Job as Differend.” Bible and Critical Theory 5.3 (2009): 37.1-37.14. https://doi.org/10.2104/BC090037.
  • “Drawing Our Fish in the Sand: Secret Biblical Allusions in the Music of U2.” Biblical Interpretation 19.1 (2011): 181–222. https://doi.org/10.1163/156851511X557352.
  • “Fallen Angels in the Hands of U2.” Exploring U2: Is This Rock ‘n‘ Roll? Essays on the Music, Work, and Influence of U2. Ed. Scott Calhoun, 174–195. Lanham: Scarecrow Press, 2011.
  • “Interpellation, not Interpolation: Reconsidering Textual Disunity in Numbers 13–14 as Variant Articulations of a Single Ideology.” Journal of Bible and Critical Theory 10.1 (2014): 29-48. https://doi.org/10.2104/bct.v10i1.583.
  • “Meeting God in the Sound: The Seductive Dimension of U2’s Future Hymns.” The Counter-Narratives of Radical Theology and Rock’n’Roll: Songs of Fear and Trembling. Ed. Mike Grimshaw, 119–136. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014.
  • “The Perfect Penis of Eden and Queer Time in Augustine’s Reading of Paul.” In Sexuality, Ideology, and the Bible: Antipodean Engagements. Hidden Perspectives. Bible in the Modern World. Ed. Robert J. Myles and Caroline Blyth. Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2015. 1-19.
  • “Religious Studies.” Theologians and Philosophers Using Social Media: Advice, Tips, and Testimonials. Ed. Thomas Jay Oord, 151-154. SacraSage Press, 2017.
  • “The Perpetuation of Racial Assumptions in Biblical Studies.” History, Politics and the Bible from the Iron Age to the Media Age: Essays in Honour of Keith W. Whitelam. Eds. James G. Crossley and Jim West, 116–134. London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2017.
  • “Whence the Giant Jesus and his Talking Cross? The Resurrection in Gospel of Peter 10.39–42 as Prophetic Fulfilment of LXX Psalm 18.” New Testament Studies 63.3 (2017): 473-491. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0028688517000042.
  • “Alloparenting may explain the paradox of religious fertility.” John Shaver, Chris Sibley, Richard Sosis, Deane Galbraith, Joseph Bulbulia. Evolution and Human Behavior 40.3 (2019): 315-324. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2019.01.004.
  • “The Origin of Archangels: Ideological Mystification of Nobility.” Class Struggle in the New Testament. Ed. Robert J. Myles, 209-240. Sheffield: Equinox, 2019.
  • “Heaven After the Loss of Heaven.” The Oxford Handbook to the Bible in American Popular Culture. Ed. Dan W. Clanton and Terry R. Clark, 219-239. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020.
  • “Jeremiah Never Saw That Coming: How Jesus Miscalculated the End Times.” Jeremiah in History and Tradition. Eds. Jim West and Niels Peter Lemche, 150-175. London: Routledge, 2020.
  • “Pigden Revisited, or In Defence of Popper’s Critique of the Conspiracy Theory of Society.” Philosophy of the Social Sciences 52.4 (2022): 235–257. https://doi.org/10.1177/00483931221081001.
  • “Indigenous Identity Appropriation in Aotearoa New Zealand: The White Academics Who Claim to Be Indigenous Māori and the Māori Who Claim to Be Indigenous Whites.” Genealogy 8.129 (2024). https://doi.org/10.3390/genealogy8040129.
  • 'In this discussion, Galbraith identifies and describes the methods and motivations of four Pākehā academics who have wrongly claimed to be Māori, part of a worldwide phenomenon known as “race-shifting”, “Pretendianism”, or “self-indigenization”. The article compares these self-indigenizing Pākehā with a Māori group that makes the fictional claim to be the true Indigenous inhabitants of Aotearoa New Zealand, the ‘White’ Hotu.' [Notes by D. Galbraith]
  • “Religion, Visions, and Alternative Historicity.” The Next Quest for the Historical Jesus. Eds. James G. Crossley and Chris Keith, 147-170. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2024.
  • Galbraith’s study of Jesus’s resurrection story applies Māori and other Indigenous ways of conceiving dreams and visions (moemoeā). [Notes by Galbraith]
  • “Nephilim in Aotearoa New Zealand: Reading Māori narratives of Tāwhaki with Gen 6:1–4’s ancient divine heroes.” Religions 15.568 (2024). https://doi.org/10.3390/rel15050568.
  • Responding to Bible Society New Zealand’s refusal to include atua Māori in the te reo Māori translation of the Bible, Galbraith sets out the close similarities between ancient Jewish hero-figures called ‘Nephilim’ and Māori heroes such as Tāwhaki. Galbraith also exposes the missionary theological bias towards imposing monotheism on biblical texts, even though biblical texts assume the existence of multiple gods. The article also critiques missionary disparagement of belief in atua Māori. [Notes by D. Galbraith]
  • “Ngāti Hotu in Paradise: How contemporary Hotu in Aotearoa New Zealand defend their White Pre-Polynesian Settlement Theory.” Journal of the Bible and its Reception 12.1 (2025): 133-166. https://doi.org/10.1515/jbr-2023-0001
  • 'Galbraith examines Māori who claim to be descended from a White race they call the Hotu, one of many alternative histories believed by certain groups in New Zealand. The article interrogates how this group justify their belief: by combining multiple authoritative epistemic foundations that give the appearance of providing corroboration.' [Notes by D. Galbraith]
  • “Unveiling the Length and Girth of John’s Millennium, Part 1 (Length): Comparing Revelation 20 with the Apocalypse of Weeks.” Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha 35.1 (2025): 61–76. https://doi.org/10.1177/09518207251352616.
  • “Unveiling the Length and Girth of John’s Millennium, Part 2 (Girth): Comparing Revelation 20 with Book 6 of Virgil’s Aeneid.” Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha 35.1 (2025): 77–98. https://doi.org/10.1177/09518207251352624.
  • “Religion without Scare Quotes: Cognitive Science of Religion and the Humanities.” Religion, Brain and Behavior 15.1 (2025): 49-57. https://doi.org/10.1080/2153599X.2023.2234441.