Early Judaism

David A. deSilva (PhD, Emory University) is Trustees’ Distinguished Professor of New Testament and Greek at Ashland Theological Seminary and an ordained elder in the United Methodist Church. When not playing the organ or composing music, deSilva produces highly respected scholarship on New Testament backgrounds, the Greek language, and the Old Testament Apocrypha.

John J. Collins (PhD, Harvard University) is the Holmes Professor of Old Testament Criticism and Interpretation at Yale Divinity School. He has published top-quality scholarship on a vast range of topics such as the Dead Sea Scrolls, ancient Jewish pseudepigraphy, Jewish apocalyptic literature, Hellenistic Judaism, Hebrew Bible, and more.

Martin Goodman (D.Phil, D.Litt, Oxford University) is Emeritus Professor of Jewish Studies at Oxford University, Emeritus Fellow of Wolfson College, and Supernumerary Fellow of the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies. He specializes in the political, social, and religious history of the Jews in the Roman Empire.

James C. VanderKam (PhD, Harvard University) is the John A. O’Brien Professor of Hebrew Scriptures Emeritus at the University of Notre Dame. Having written and edited numerous acclaimed books on the text and interpretation of the Dead Sea Scrolls, VanderKam is one of today’s premier scholars of ancient Judaism.

Matthew Thiessen (PhD, Duke University) is associate professor of Religious Studies at McMaster University. His work mainly focuses on the rise of early Christianity particularly as it relates to early Judaism. Thiessen’s work Contesting Conversion was awarded the Manfred Lautenschlaeger Award for Theological Promise.