About

I am currently Professor of Biblical Studies at Belmont University in Nashville, Tennessee, where I have taught since 2000. My courses include Introduction to the Old Testament, Biblical Hebrew, The Pentateuch, The Prophetic Literature, Old Testament Theology, and “God, the Bible and Scientific Discovery.”

My research interests are deliberately eclectic and include: A Chorus of Prophetic Voices: Introducing the Prophetic Literature of Ancient Israel (2015), An Apocryphal God (2015), Portraits of a Mature God (2013), Struggling with God: An Introduction to the Pentateuch (2008), Raising Cain, Fleeing Egypt, and Fighting Philistines: The Old Testament in Popular Music (2006). I recently do-edited a special issue of Perspectives in Religious Studies on “Violence in the Bible” (2015).

One of my current projects is a book that explores how biblical texts portray cities and urban life and the implications of those portrayals for modern urban readers. Not Scattered or Confused: The Bible in an Urban World is forthcoming from Westminster John Knox Press in 2019.

I frequently lead a study abroad program called Belmont in the Biblical World, which visits places like Israel, Palestine, Jordan, Turkey, and Greece.