Dr. Aaron Higashi is an adjunct instructor at Grand Canyon University. He received his B.A. in philosophy from the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs (2008), his M.A. in biblical studies from Providence College (2010), his S.T.M. from Chicago Theological Seminary (2011), and his Ph.D. in Bible, culture, and hermeneutics with an emphasis in Hebrew Bible from Chicago Theological Seminary (2021). Aaron is interested in the relationship between ideology, moral philosophy, and biblical interpretation, and shares biblical scholarship with a popular audience @abhbible on TikTok. Aaron lives in Scottsdale, Arizona with his pediatrician wife and three young daughters, where he does jiu-jitsu, drinks too much coffee, plays video games, and tries to discuss biblical interpretation at parties and other social events where it's probably not cool to do so.

Alexiana Fry is a postdoctorate researcher at the University of Copenhagen, working on a project entitled “Divergent Views of Diaspora.” Her interests in migration, trauma, and feminism coincide in much of her work, including her first book, Trauma Talks in the Hebrew Bible. She is also a proud pug parent.
www.alexianafry.com

Anna Sieges Beal is an Old and New Testament professor at Gardner-Webb University and a Nerd in Residence with the Bible for Normal People. She specializes in the Minor Prophets and enjoys thinking about how the Bible came together. In her free time, she likes to eat pizza and watch TV with her family.

Bradley Jersak is an author and teacher based in Abbotsford, BC. He currently serves as the Principal of St. Stephen’s University (SSU.ca) in New Brunswick, where he continues as the Director and faculty member of SSU’s School of Theology & Culture. He also teaches peace studies courses with JFI.SSU.ca and is a regular speaker with the Open Table Conference crew. He writes regularly for the Clarion Journal and CWR magazine.
bradjersak.com

Brent A. Strawn is D. Moody Smith Distinguished Professor of Old Testament and Professor of Law at Duke University and a Senior Fellow in the Center for the Study of Law and Religion at Emory University where he previously served as W. R. Cannon Distinguished Professor of Old Testament. He has edited over twenty-five volumes to date, including the award-winning The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Bible and Law (2015). In addition to authoring over 250 articles, essays, and contributions to reference works, he has authored six books. Strawn is an ordained elder in the North Georgia Conference of The United Methodist Church and regularly speaks and preaches at churches across the country. He has appeared on CNN on matters ranging from Easter celebrations to Pope Francis to gun violence and served as a translator and editor for the Common English Bible (2011) and the New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition (2022).

Brian Fiu Kolia is a second-generation Australian-born Samoan. He is a lecturer in the Hebrew Bible at Malua Theological College and holds a PhD from the University of Divinity, Melbourne, Australia. He is interested in reading the text from decolonizing, Pasifika/Moana cultural, and indigenous/native perspectives. More importantly, he is a husband to Tanaria and a father to Elichai.

Camille is a previous co-founder of multiple direct-to-consumer brands, a mom to two wonderful kids, and holds an M.S. in Communication from Boston University and a Certificate in Youth and Theology from Princeton Theological Seminary. Her passions lie in the realm of spiritual and emotional healing and integrated approaches to transpersonal psychology. Her deepest desire is to see experiential encounters with God's love move people to peace—with themselves, the world, and each other. She currently resides in Austin, Texas.

Carolyn Custis James (BA in Sociology, MA in Biblical Studies) is an award winning author who thinks deeply about what it means to be a female follower of Jesus in a postmodern world. Her speaking and writing ministry is dedicated to addressing the deeper needs and issues confronting both women and men as they endeavor to extend God’s kingdom together in a messy and complicated world.
carolyncustisjames.com

Chauncey Diego Francisco Handy is a Chicano scholar of the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament and Assistant Professor of Religion and Humanities at Reed College in Portland, Oregon, USA. His work focuses on the intersection of the Pentateuch, theories of ethnicity, Latinx constructions of identity, and scribal production. He is an ordained teaching elder in the Presbyterian Church (USA) and enjoys trips to the bakery with his family, hiking, and nice coffee.

Dr. Cynthia Shafer-Elliott is an Associate Professor of the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament at Baylor University. An experienced field archaeologist and part of the archaeological excavations at Tel Halif and Tel Abel Beth Maacah in Israel, Dr. Shafer-Elliott’s research emphasizes household archaeology and issues of food, gender, religion, and social memory. She is the author of a number of books including The 5 Minute Archaeologist in the Southern Levant and Food in Ancient Judah: Domestic Cooking in the Time of the Hebrew Bible.

Dan McClellan is a public scholar of the Bible and religion. He combats the spread of misinformation about both on social media as @maklelan. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Exeter and specializes in biblical studies, cognitive linguistics, and the cognitive science of religion.

Drew G. I. Hart is an associate professor of theology at Messiah University where he currently directs the Thriving Together: Congregations for Racial Justice program. He co-hosts Inverse Podcast and is the author of Trouble I've Seen: Changing the Way the Church Views Racism (2016), Who Will Be A Witness?: Igniting Activism for God's Justice, Love, and Deliverance (2020), and he most recently co-edited Reparations and the Theological Disciplines: Prophetic Voices for Remembrance, Reckoning, and Repair. Drew is married to Renee and the father of three sons.

Lizz is an author and co-host of the Deconstructing Mamas podcast. She is deeply passionate about creating a space for spiritual misfits to find a sense of safety and belonging on their faith journeys. She lives with her husband and two young children in Pennsylvania, USA.

Elizabeth "Libbie" Schrader Polczer is an Assistant Professor of New Testament at Villanova University. Her studies focus on textual criticism, Mary Magdalene, and the Gospel of John. Elizabeth transitioned to religious scholarship after a long career as a singer/songwriter. After writing a song about Mary Magdalene, Elizabeth enrolled in the M.A. program at General Theological Seminary. Her interest in the text of John's Gospel culminated in the publication of her Master's thesis in the Harvard Theological Review. Her research has been featured in The Daily Beast, Religion News Service, Christian Century, and the National Catholic Reporter.

Ellen Davis is the Amos Ragan Kearns Distinguished Professor of Bible and Practical Theology at Duke Divinity School and the grandmother of eight. She writes and speaks for a wide audience of scholars, clergy, and so-called normal people, both Jews and Christians, who wonder whether and how the Bible speaks to us in contemporary situations.

Erin is the Resident Bible Scholar on the Faith Adjacent podcast. She’s the author of Every Broken Thing, O Heavy Lightness, Memento Mori, Dis/entangle, and Mercy Seat, and she is also the Senior Creative at the Popcast Media Group. Erin cares deeply about chips and salsa, as well as creating and caring for communities of curious and kind people. She lives in Birmingham, Alabama with her husband, three kids, and dog Bear.
www.erinhmoon.com

Havilah Dharamraj is faculty in Old Testament at the South Asia Institute of Advanced Christian Studies (SAIACS) in Bangalore, India. Her academic degrees include an MS in biochemistry, an MA in Christianity, and a Ph.D. in Old Testament from the University of Durham, UK. Her areas of academic interest are Old Testament narrative, reception-centered intertextuality that engages texts across the biblical canon, and comparative literature which converses biblical texts with the sacred texts of other faiths. She encourages the retrieval of traditional methods of storytelling for use in preaching.

Isaac T. Soon (Ph.D., Durham University) is an Associate Professor of the New Testament at Crandall University. His first book, A Disabled Apostle: Impairment and Disability in the Letters of Paul was published in 2023 by Oxford University Press.
isaacsoon.com

Jared Byas helps run the Bible for Normal People, and regularly writes and speaks about the Bible, truth, creativity, wisdom, and the Christian faith. He has written a handful of books including Love Matters More and Jonah for Normal People.

Jarrod McKenna is a nonviolent peace activist committed to seeing the transfiguring fire of God’s love become our experience in prayer and our program for ecological and social healing. Husband to Kathleen and father to Tyson, Winni, Hugo, and Noah, Jarrod is the co-host of Inverse Podcast and teaching pastor at Steeple Church, as well as the founding CEO of CommonGrace.org.au, initiator of LoveMakesAWay.org.au, and founder of the First Home Project for refugees. He lives and worships in Noongar Boodja country.
jarrodmckenna.com

Jennifer Garcia Bashaw is an Associate Professor of New Testament and Christian Ministry at Campbell University in North Carolina. She has a passion for teaching the Bible on a lay level and contributes social media content to outlets such as Baptist News Global and The Bible for Normal People, where she is a nerd-in-resident. Dr. Bashaw is an ordained American Baptist minister who enjoys preaching as well as training and resourcing pastors. She is the author of Scapegoats: The Gospel through the Eyes of Victims and John for Normal People: A Guide through the Drama and Depth of the Fourth Gospel.

Jennifer T. Kaalund (Ph.D., New Testament and Early Christianity, Drew University) is Associate Professor of New Testament at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary. Her research focuses on contextual Biblical hermeneutics, material culture, and African American culture. She is the author of Reading Hebrews and 1 Peter with the African American Great Migration: Diaspora, Place, and Identity (Bloomsbury T&T Clark Press, 2018).

Jione Havea is co-parent for a polycultural daughter and native pastor (Methodist) from Tonga who migrated to the land now known as Australia. Jione loves stories and has learned that a story is made up of many stories so he listens for those other stories as well.

Originally from Malaysian Borneo, Fr Jonathan Jong now finds himself as an Anglican priest in West Sussex in the south of England. He mainly writes for grown-ups, but as his children have taken no interest in his research into the psychology of religion, he thought he'd try Bible stories instead.

Joshua T. James (Ph.D., Fuller Theological Seminary) is one of the pastors of The Restoration Project in Salisbury, Maryland, and an affiliate faculty member at his alma mater. He lives on the Eastern Shore of Maryland with his wife, Kate, and their two sons, Abe and Jude.

Katharine Dell is a Professor of Old Testament Literature and Theology in the Faculty of Divinity at the University of Cambridge and a Fellow of St Catharine's College, Cambridge. Her main academic interests are in the wisdom literature of the Old Testament, but she has also written on biblical theology, environmental ethics, musical interpretations of scripture, and more.

Kylie Crabbe is an Associate Professor in the Biblical and Early Christian Studies program at Australian Catholic University and a Uniting Church Minister. Currently, she is working on a major project about disability in early Christianity, and looking especially at how biblical passages about disability have been interpreted in different historical periods—including diverse contemporary settings.

Lauren is an editor and writer deeply interested in the stories behind the biblical texts. She oversees all things books at The Bible for Normal People, and loves bringing scholars and curious people into conversation with one another.

Mari Joerstad is an associate professor of the Hebrew Bible and Academic Dean at the Vancouver School of Theology. Her research focuses on ecology, land, migration, and belonging in the Hebrew Bible. She is the author of The Hebrew Bible and Environmental Ethics: Humans, Nonhumans, and the Living Landscape (CUP).

Dr Marika Rose is a senior lecturer in philosophical theology at the University of Winchester. She is the author of A Theology of Failure: Žižek Against Christian Innocence (Fordham University Press, 2019) and Theology for the End of the World (SCM Press, 2023).

Mark Brett is a white Australian biblical scholar who was raised in Papua New Guinea. Having taught in Naarm/Melbourne since 1992, his research has focused on ethnicity, political theology, and decolonial studies. He is collaborating with Aboriginal and Islander colleagues on the refashioning of biblical studies in Australia and Oceania.

Marlena Graves is the Assistant Professor of Spiritual Formation at Northeastern Seminary on the campus of Roberts Wesleyan University in Rochester, NY. She has written five books, two of which were award-winning, and over two hundred articles found in a variety of venues like Christianity Today, Relevant, Sojourners, the Christian Century, and more. Marlena has been on the board of several organizations including Evangelicals 4 Justice and The Red Bud Writers Guild. She is married to her husband Shawn, a philosophy professor, and has three wonderful, beautiful, brilliant, and growing girls. She wants people to know God delights in them. She has been dubbed and sees herself as a missionary to the American Church. She loves to laugh, be out in nature, and be with family, friends, and good folk. She hopes to leave a little bit of shalom in her wake.
marlenagraves.com

Dr Meredith JC Warren is a Senior Lecturer in Biblical and Religious Studies at the University of Sheffield. She is the author of numerous books and articles on gender in early Christianity, food and meals in ancient literature, and anti-Judaism and the New Testament. Her most recent book is Jewish and Christian Women in the Ancient Mediterranean (Routledge 2022).

Dr. Miguel A. De La Torre is an international scholar, documentarian, novelist, academic author, and scholar activist. Since obtaining his doctoral in 1999, he has authored over a hundred articles and published forty-five books (six of which won national awards). He presently serves as Professor of Social Ethics and Latinx Studies at the Iliff School of Theology in Denver. A Fulbright scholar, he has taught in Australia, Columbia, Germany, Indonesia, Italy, Mexico, New Zealand, and South Africa; and lectured in Britain, Costa Rica, Cuba, Palestine, Thailand, and Taiwan. Dr. De La Torre has written numerous articles in popular media and has served on several civic organizations. Recently, he wrote the screenplay for a documentary – Trails of Hope and Terror - on immigration which has screened in over eighteen film festivals winning over seven awards. Additionally, he has written an autofiction magical realism novel titled Miguelito’s Confessions.

Monica Melanchthon is an Associate Professor, of Hebrew Bible/Old Testament Studies, at the Pilgrim Theological College, University of Divinity. Monica’s vocation has been a unique blend of the joy that comes with the ministry of teaching and forming candidates, and the resourcing of the wider church, a passion for working with communities, particularly of women, and a love of academic research, teaching, and mentoring. Monica is committed to producing reflections and texts that resist and counter cultures and languages of dominance that exclude the voices of the oppressed. Her most recent publications include two co-edited volumes: Terror in the Bible: Rhetoric, Gender, and Violence (IVBS, Atlanta: SBL, 2021); and Bible Blindspots: Dispersion and Othering (Pickwick Publications, 2021).

Morley van Yperen is a mother of six, grandmother of three, and Theologian in Residence of Ekklesia Contemporary Ballet all of whom she enjoys exploring the Bible with to discover how hearts, minds, and lives might be shaped to learn to live with each other and the world around us.

Peter Enns (Ph.D., Harvard University) is Abram S. Clemens professor of biblical studies at Eastern University in St. Davids, Pennsylvania and co-host of The Bible for Normal People podcast. He has written numerous books, including The Bible Tells Me So, The Sin of Certainty, and How the Bible Actually Works.

Rachel Mann is a UK-based priest, poet, scholar and broadcaster. She has written fourteen books and contributed to many more. She writes regularly for The Christian Century and The Church Times and is a regular broadcaster on BBC radio. She is the first out trans woman to hold a senior role in the Church of England.
www.rachelmann.co.uk

Rachel Starr is Director of Studies at the Queen’s Foundation for Ecumenical Theological Education in Birmingham. She completed her doctorate in Buenos Aires, Argentina, researching the impact of theologies of marriage on domestic violence. She writes about reading the Bible as a white woman, the Bible and violence, and Latin American biblical interpretation. Publications include Reimagining Theologies of Marriage in Contexts of Domestic Violence (Routledge, 2018); with David Holgate, SCM Studyguide: Biblical Hermeneutics 2nd edition (SCM Press, 2019); and with Ashley Cocksworth and Stephen Burns, From the Shores of Silence. Conversations in Feminist Practical Theology (SCM Press, 2023).

Dr. Raj Nadella is the Samuel A. Cartledge Associate Professor of New Testament at Columbia Theological Seminary. Nadella is the author of Dialogue Not Dogma: Many Voices in the Gospel of Luke (Bloomsbury, 2011) and co-editor of Christianity and the Law of Migration (Routledge, 2021). He is currently co-editing The Oxford Handbook of the Bible, Race and Diaspora. Nadella serves on the editorial boards of Currents in Biblical Research, Review of Biblical Literature and Oxford Bibliographies Online: Biblical Studies. He has written for publications such as The Christian Century, The Huffington Post and Sojourners.

Dr. Woodley addresses a variety of issues concerning American culture, faith, justice, race, our relationship with the earth, and Indigenous realities. His expertise has been sought in national venues as diverse as Time Magazine, The New York Times, Politifact, Christianity Today, The Huffington Post, and Planet Drum: A Voice for Bioregional, Sustainability, Education, and Culture. Randy identifies strongly with issues of eco-justice, diversity, and racial justice. He has found the sweet spot of sharing difficult truths, in the spirit of love and acceptance through his teachings and writings. Randy’s authentic and timely messages dig to the root of our own imbalanced and unjust systems in an effort to restore us all to ways of harmony.
www.randywoodley.com

Richard Rohr is a globally recognized Franciscan friar and ecumenical teacher whose work bears witness to the deep wisdom of Christian mysticism. He is the founder of the Center for Action and Contemplation in Albuquerque, New Mexico, an educational nonprofit that introduces spiritual seekers to the Christian contemplative path of transformation. He is the author of many books, including the New York Times bestseller The Universal Christ, Falling Upward, and Breathing Under Water. His work has been featured on Oprah’s SuperSoul Sunday, Krista Tippett’s On Being, and in The New Yorker and Harper’s Magazine.

Safwat Marzouk is the Associate Professor of Old Testament at Union Presbyterian Seminary and an ordained pastor in the Presbyterian Church. As a Christian Egyptian and migrant to the U.S., he interprets the Bible in ways that are interreligiously and interculturally sensitive seeking God’s shalom and justice for the vulnerable and the marginalized. Dr. Marzouk is the author of three books: Egypt as a Monster in the Book of Ezekiel; Exodus, Joshua, Ezekiel in the Arabic Contemporary Commentary; and Intercultural Church: A Biblical Vision for an Age of Migration.

Sarah Emanuel is an Assistant Professor of Theological Studies at Loyola Marymount University, co-chair for the CoLaboratory at Feminist Studies in Religion, Inc., co-host of the podcast, "Feminists Talk Religion," and Content Area Editor of Biblical Studies at Ancient Jew Review. Her research attends to the Jewishness of Christian origins, the relationship among text, culture, and identity, and the interplay between traditional historical-critical methodologies and contemporary critical theory.

Sarah Shectman is the managing editor of the Posen Library of Jewish Culture and Civilization. She holds a Ph.D. in Bible and Ancient Near East from Brandeis University. She is the author of Women in the Pentateuch: A Feminist and Source-Critical Analysis (Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2009) and co-editor of The Strata of the Priestly Writings: Contemporary Debate and Future Directions (Zürich: Theologischer Verlag, 2009) and of the forthcoming Bloomsbury Handbook on Gender, Sexuality, and Religion in the Ancient Near East. She lives in San Francisco.

Savannah is a writer exploring the intersections of faith, life, and beauty. With a Master's degree in Anabaptist studies, she is shaped by the rich heritage of peacemaking and aims to expand that peace through her work. Based just outside Nashville, Tennessee, Savannah lives with her husband, Todd, and their two dogs, Bentley and Prudence.

Shane Claiborne is a prominent speaker, activist, and best-selling author. Founder of The Simple Way in Philadelphia, he heads up Red Letter Christians, a movement of folks who are committed to living "as if Jesus meant the things he said." Shane is a champion for grace which has led him to jail advocating for the homeless, and to places like Iraq and Afghanistan to stand against war. Now grace fuels his passion to end the death penalty and help stop gun violence. Shane’s books include Jesus for President, Red Letter Revolution, Becoming the Answer to Our Prayers, The Irresistible Revolution, and Rethinking Life. He has delivered academic lectures at Yale, Princeton, Liberty, Duke, and Notre Dame, and in 2023, Shane received the prestigious The King Center's Beloved Community Award for Social Justice from Dr. Bernice King.

Shannon K. Evans is the spirituality and culture editor at the National Catholic Reporter and author of Feminist Prayers for My Daughter, Rewilding Motherhood, and The Mystics Would Like a Word. Shannon is a speaker, retreat leader, and Jesuit Media Lab instructor. She lives in Iowa with her family and chickens.

Shayna Sheinfeld is assistant professor of religion at Augsburg University (Minneapolis, USA) where she teaches courses on biblical and non-canonical texts. Her research emphasizes the vast diversity of Judaism in antiquity. Sheinfeld is the author of numerous books and articles including Jewish and Christian Women in the Ancient Mediterranean with Sara Parks and Meredith JC Warren (Routledge 2022).

Steed Vernyl Davidson serves as the Executive Director of the Society of Biblical Literature. He is Extraordinary Visiting Professor, Old Testament, Department of Old and New Testament, Stellenbosch University, South Africa.

Summer Kinard, M.Div., Th.M., an autistic Orthodox Christian theologian, and mother of five, writes and leads vibrant interactive workshops that combine depth of prayerful study on Christ's Incarnation and deep listening to help everyone participate in our Loving-kind God. She is the author of several books, including Of Such is the Kingdom: A Practical Theology of Disability, Accessible Church School: Incarnational Practices for Participating in God, and Seven Holy Women: Conversations with Saints and Friends, which she co-authored. She writes regularly on her substack Some Myrrh and summerkinard.com.

Tamice Spencer-Helms is a dynamic author, coach, speaker, trainer, and theo-activist. With extensive experience in the nonprofit sector and mentoring, she empowers her clients through innovative training and community-focused initiatives. Tamice is the Founder of Sub:Culture Inc. an education and equity nonprofit designed to Clear The Path for Black College Students, and the author of Faith Unleavened: The Wilderness Between Trayvon Martin and George Floyd.

Terry J. Stokes served in parish ministry for several years before moving into his current nonprofit community development work in central New Jersey. He is the author of Prayers for the People (Convergent 2021) and Jesus and the Abolitionists: How Anarchist Christianity Empowers the People (Broadleaf 2024).
www.terryjstokes.com