Notes on Contributors
Alicia J. Batten is Professor of Religious Studies and Theological Studies at Conrad Grebel University College at the University of Waterloo, in Ontario, Canada. Among her publications are Friendship and Benefaction in James (ESEC 15; Deo, 2010; SBL, 2017), a commentary on Philemon in the Wisdom Commentary Series (Liturgical Press, 2017), and articles and essays on early Christian literature. She is currently co-editing a book on dress in Mediterranean antiquity (Bloomsbury T&T Clark) and writing a commentary on the letter of James (Eerdmans).
James H. Charlesworth was a professor at Duke University, Princeton Theological Seminary, and had distinguished chairs at Hebrew University, the Gregorianum, Naples, and other universities. He has published 80 books and edited over 150 books. He has two honorary degrees and has received awards from many countries.
James Crossley is Professor of Bible, Society and Politics at St. Mary’s University, Twickenham. His research focuses on Christian origins and first century Judaism, as well as modern political receptions of the Bible. Some of his notable publications include Cults, Martyrs and Good Samaritans (University of Chicago Press, 2018), Jesus and the Chaos of History (Oxford University Press, 2015), Jesus in an Age of Neoliberalism (Routledge, 2012), and The New Testament and the Jewish Law (T&T Clark, 2010). He is currently completing a monograph on John Ball and his reception from the fourteenth century to the present. He has served as editor and editorial board member for a number of journals and monograph series, and he is currently one of the academic directors of the Centre for the Critical Study of Apocalyptic and Millenarian Movements.
Craig A. Evans received his PhD from Claremont and his DHabil from the Károli Gáspár Reformed University in Budapest. He has published several books on Jesus, the Gospels, and the context of early Christianity. He is the John Bisagno Distinguished Professor of Christian Origins at Houston Baptist University.
Tucker S. Ferda (PhD, University of Pittsburgh) is currently Assistant Professor of New Testament at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary. He has published Jesus, the Gospels, and the Galilean Crisis (Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2019), which investigates responses to the rejection of Jesus, and multiple articles on various topics in the study of the New Testament, Christian origins, and Second Temple Judaism. His current book project examines the origin and reception history of the second advent hope in early Christianity.
Paul Foster (DPhil 2003, University of Oxford) is currently Professor of New Testament and Early Christianity at the University of Edinburgh. His major publications include Colossians in Black’s New Testament Commentaries (Bloomsbury, 2016), The Gospel of Peter: Introduction, Critical Edition and Commentary (Brill, 2010), and Community, Law and Mission in Matthew’s Gospel (Mohr Siebeck, 2004).
Daniel Frayer-Griggs (PhD, Durham University) is currently a writing specialist in the Center for Writing and Learning Support at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, where he also teaches Greek and New Testament. He previously served two years as Visiting Assistant Professor of Theology at Duquesne University. Frayer-Griggs is the author of Saved through Fire: The Fiery Ordeal in New Testament Eschatology (Pickwick, 2016), and his articles have appeared in The Harvard Theological Review, The Journal of Biblical Literature, The Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus, and New Testament Studies.
Paula Fredriksen is the Aurelio Professor of Scripture emerita at Boston University, and since 2009 has been Distinguished Visiting Professor of Comparative Religion at the Hebrew University, Jerusalem. A fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, she holds honorary doctorates from universities in the United States (Iona), Sweden (Lund), and Israel (Hebrew University). In 2020, her Shaffer Lectures at Yale University focused on “Christian Identity, Paul’s Letters, and Thinking with ‘Jews.’ ” She has published widely on the social and intellectual history of ancient Christianity and on pagan-Jewish-Christian relations in the Roman Empire. Her study Paul: The Pagans’ Apostle won a 2018 Prose Award by the American Publishers Association.
Mark Goodacre is the Frances Hill Fox Professor of Religious Studies at Duke University. He earned his MA, MPhil, and DPhil at the University of Oxford. His research interests include the Gospels, the Apocryphal New Testament, and the Historical Jesus. Goodacre is the author of four books including The Case Against Q: Studies in Markan Priority and the Synoptic Problem (Trinity Press International, 2002) and Thomas and the Gospels: The Case for Thomas’s Familiarity with the Synoptics (Eerdmans, 2012). He is well known for creating web resources on the New Testament and Christian origins, including his podcast, the NT Pod. Goodacre has acted as consultant for several TV and radio programs including The Passion (BBC / HBO, 2008) and Finding Jesus (CNN, 2015–2017). Goodacre is currently working on a book on John’s knowledge of the Synoptic Gospels.
Robert H. Gundry is Kathleen Smith Professor Emeritus of Religious Studies and scholar-in-residence at Westmont College, Santa Barbara, California. He has published major commentaries on the Gospels of Matthew and Mark, the entire New Testament including a literalistic Greek-to-English translation, a New Testament survey (now in its fifth edition and translated into five other languages), and eight more books, plus scores of articles and reviews on biblical-theological topics. Two Festschriften celebrate his scholarship. Gundry earned degrees from the Los Angeles Baptist College and Seminary and a PhD from Manchester University under F. F. Bruce. In 1999, Westmont established an endowed chair in his name.
Edith M. Humphrey is the William F. Orr Professor of New Testament at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary. She is the author of articles on topics as diverse as the rhetorical analysis of vision reports, theological anthropology, and justification in St. John Chrysostom and Calvin. She has published eight books: The Ladies and the Cities (1995; reprint: T&T Clark, 2018), Further Up and Further In (St. Vladimir’s Press, 2017), Scripture and Tradition (Baker, 2013), Grand Entrance (Brazos, 2011), And I Turned to See the Voice (Baker, 2007), Ecstasy and Intimacy (Eerdmans, 2005), Joseph and Aseneth (Sheffield Academic Press, 2000). A grandmother to nineteen children, she has just completed a novel for middle-school children, and is currently writing a book on Mediation and the Immediate God.
Nathan C. Johnson (PhD, Princeton Theological Seminary) is Assistant Professor of Religion at the University of Indianapolis, having previously served as a teaching fellow at Princeton Theological Seminary and a research specialist at Princeton University. His articles have appeared in venues such as The Journal of Biblical Literature, The Catholic Biblical Quarterly, New Testament Studies, and The Journal of Theological Studies. He currently serves on the steering group for the ten-volume Ancient Literature for New Testament Studies series. His current book project examines messianic David traditions in Matthew’s passion narrative.
Chris Keith (PhD, University of Edinburgh) is Research Professor of New Testament and Early Christianity at St Mary’s University, Twickenham, where he also serves as Director of the Centre for the Social-Scientific Study of the Bible. Some of his notable publications include The Pericope Adulterae, the Gospel of John, and the Literacy of Jesus (Brill, 2009), for which he won a John Templeton Award for Theological Promise, Jesus against the Scribal Elite: The Origins of the Conflict (Baker Academic, 2014), and most recently The Gospel as Manuscript: An Early History of the Jesus Tradition as Material Artifact (Oxford University Press, 2020). He also served as the lead editor on The Reception of Jesus in the First Three Centuries (3 vols., T&T Clark 2020).
Christian D. Kettler is Professor of Theology and Religion at Friends University in Wichita, Kansas. He has been on the faculty since 1987. A native of Wichita, Kettler received his BA from Friends University and the degrees MA, MDiv, and PhD in Systematic Theology from Fuller Theological Seminary. He is on the preaching team at the Church of the Savior in Wichita. Kettler is the author of The Vicarious Humanity and the Reality of Salvation (1991), The God Who Believes: Faith, Doubt, and the Vicarious Humanity of Christ (2005), The God Who Rejoices: Joy, Despair, and the Vicarious Humanity of Christ (2010), Reading Ray S. Anderson: Theology as Ministry, Ministry as Theology (2010), The Breadth and Depth of the Atonement: The Vicarious Humanity of Christ in the Church, the World, and the Self: Essays: 1990–2015 (2017), and The God Who Loves and Is Loved: The Vicarious Humanity of Christ and the Response of Love (2019). Kettler was awarded the W. A. Young Award for Excellence in Teaching in 1999 and the St. John of Damascus Award for cultural renewal by the Eighth Day Institute in 2018. He is past president of the Thomas F. Torrance Theological Fellowship.
Nancy Klancher is Associate Professor of Philosophy and Religion at Bridgewater College in Bridgewater, VA. Among her publications are The Taming of the Canaanite Woman (de Gruyter, 2013), the edited memoirs of a Red Cross nurse in 1915 Turkey, entitled A Massacre Averted (Markus Wiener, 2011), and articles on reception history, gender, and interfaith studies. Her current book project is on Jewish and Christian reception of Genesis 18:1–15.
John S. Kloppenborg holds the rank of University Professor at the University of Toronto and is a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. He has published widely in the field of synoptic studies, social history of Mediterranean antiquity, and the letter of James. His most recent publications are Christ’s Associations: Connecting and Belonging in the Ancient City (2019), Synoptic Problems (2014), Attica, Central Greece, Macedonia, Thrace, vol. 1 of Greco-Roman Associations: Texts, Translations, and Commentary (with R. Ascough, 2011), and The Tenants in the Vineyard: Ideology, Economics, and Agrarian Conflict in Jewish Palestine (2006).
Matthias Konradt received his doctorate from the Ruprecht-Karls-University of Heidelberg in 1996 with a dissertation on the Epistle of James. After working as vicar and pastor from 1996 to 1999, he was research assistant at the University of Bonn, where he pursued his post-doctoral project on judgment in Paul. From 2003 to 2009 he was professor of New Testament at the University of Berne (Switzerland). Since 2009 he has been professor of New Testament at the Ruprecht-Karls-University Heidelberg (Germany). Since 2013 he has been executive editor of Zeitschrift für die Neutestamentliche Wissenschaft. His main areas of specialization are the Gospel of Matthew, Paul and Deuteropauline literature, the Epistle of James, New Testament Ethics, and the Jewish background of emerging Christianity.
Jared W. Ludlow is a Professor of Ancient Scripture and Ancient Near Eastern Studies at Brigham Young University where he has taught since 2006. Previously, he spent six years teaching religion and history at BYU Hawaii. He has also taught two years at the BYU Jerusalem Center for Near Eastern Studies. Jared received his bachelor’s degree from BYU in Near Eastern Studies, his master’s degree from the University of California-Berkeley in Biblical Hebrew, and his PhD in Near Eastern Religions from UC-Berkeley and the Graduate Theological Union. His primary research interests are with texts related to Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity.
Joel Marcus is Professor Emeritus of New Testament and Christian Origins at Duke Divinity School. His publications include the two-volume commentary on Mark in the Yale Anchor Bible series (2000, 2009) and John the Baptist in History and Theology (University of South Carolina Press, 2018).
Lidija Novakovic is Professor of New Testament in the Department of Religion at Baylor University. Her publications include Messiah, the Healer of the Sick: A Study of Jesus as the Son of David in the Gospel of Matthew (Mohr Siebeck, 2003), Raised from the Dead According to Scripture: The Role of Israel’s Scripture in the Early Christian Interpretations of Jesus’ Resurrection (Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2012), Resurrection: A Guide for the Perplexed (Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2016), John 1–10 / John 11–21: A Handbook on the Greek Text (Baylor University Press, 2020), and various articles on Matthew’s use of Scripture, Matthew’s messianization of Mark, and Matthew’s understanding of Torah observance.
Stephen J. Patterson is the George H. Atkinson chair in Religion at Willamette University in Salem, Oregon. He holds advanced degrees from Harvard and Claremont and has been a Fulbright Fellow in Germany. Patterson is the author of several books, including most recently The Forgotten Creed (Oxford, 2018), which won the 2020 Grawemeyer Award in religion.
Brant Pitre (PhD, University of Notre Dame) is Distinguished Research Professor of Scripture at the Augustine Institute, Graduate School of Theology. He is the author of multiple books and articles, including Jesus and the Last Supper (Eerdmans, 2015) and Jesus, the Tribulation, and the End of the Exile (Mohr Siebeck/Baker Academic, 2005). He is also co-author with Michael P. Barber and John A. Kincaid of Paul, a New Covenant Jew: Rethinking Pauline Theology (Eerdmans, 2019).
Rafael Rodríguez is Professor of New Testament in the School of Bible and Theology at Johnson University in Knoxville, TN. His PhD is from the University of Sheffield. His publications include Structuring Early Christian Memory (T&T Clark, 2010), Oral Tradition and the New Testament (T&T Clark, 2014), If You Call Yourself a Jew (Cascade, 2014), and Jesus Darkly (Abingdon, 2018), as well as The So-Called Jew in Paul’s Letter to the Romans (co-edited with Matthew Thiessen; Fortress, 2016).
Gerd Theissen studied Protestant theology and German literature in Bonn. There he received his doctorate in 1968 and habilitated in 1972. He taught at grammar schools from 1975 to 1978, as Professor at the University of Copenhagen from 1978 to 1980, and as Professor at Heidelberg University since 1980. He has published novels on Jesus and Paul, many collections of sermons, a book on homiletics, and a catechism in the form of meditative texts. His exegetical and theological publications include Sociology of Early Palestinian Christianity (1978), Psychological Aspects of Pauline Theology (1987), Biblical Faith: An Evolutionary Approach (1985), The Historical Jesus (with A. Merz, 1998), The Religion of the Earliest Churches (1999), The New Testament: A Literary History (2011), Der Römerbrief—Rechenschaft eines Reformators (with P. von Gemünden, 2016), and Religionskritik als Religionsdiskurs (2020).