My name is Mark Steven Francois. I have a Ph.D. in Theology (Old Testament) from the University of St. Michael’s College (registered through Wycliffe College, University of Toronto). My primary interests are Deuteronomy, OT Ethics, Biblical Law, OT Theology, Hebrew, and Classical Syriac. I am also very interested in Patristics and certain aspects of Systematic Theology (Christology, Personal Eschatology, and Ecclesiology). My dissertation was on the relationship between the parallel curses of Deuteronomy 28 and the Loyalty Oath of Esarhaddon and was supervised by Dr. Christopher Seitz. I recently started a new position as the Assistant Professor of Old Testament and Semitic Languages at Colorado Christian University. I was previously the pastor of Calvary Gospel Church in Blind River, Ontario, for twelve years. I have an incredible wife named Alecia, a very creative eleven-year-old daughter named Jael, and a nine-year-old son named Caleb who is obsessed with Mario.
Current Projects:
-A Grammar of Classical Syriac.
-YouTube videos on Syriac, OT textual criticism, and other topics.
-A paper for the Evangelical Theological Society meeting, 2023.
-Revision of my Ph.D. dissertation for publication.
Some Trivia:
-I am distantly related to the Dutch theologian Harry Kuitert.
-I was born in Canada but my father is from Trinidad and my mother is from Friesland in the Netherlands.
-I spent eight months in Germany in one of the worst places to learn German. Let’s just say: Sie können alles. Außer Hochdeutsch! But I really enjoyed my time there!
-My favourite (Christian) podcasts are Issues etc., Mortification of Spin, and Just & Sinner.
-I taught Hebrew for several years at Toronto Baptist Seminary and have begun to teach a course here and there at Tyndale Seminary and Toronto Baptist Seminary.
For questions, comments, corrections, and feedback on the free online grammar of Classical Syriac, feel free to send me an e-mail at classicalsyriac@hotmail.com .
Between the Perfect and the Doomed 