FOOTSTEPS OF PAUL

Brian K. Blount is President Emeritus of Union Presbyterian Seminary, following service as the Richard J. Dearborn Professor of New Testament Interpretation at Princeton Theological Seminary. An M.Div. graduate of Princeton Seminary, he obtained his B.A. from the College of William and Mary. After seminary, he was pastor of the Carver Memorial Presbyterian Church in Newport News, Virginia. He later received his Ph.D. in New Testament Studies from Emory University. He has served as the president of the Society of Biblical Literature and the president of the Association of Theological Schools. His primary research has been in the Gospel of Mark, the Book of Revelation and cultural studies and hermeneutics. His most recent publications are: True To Our Native Land: An African American New Testament Commentary (Second Edition), Editor (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2023). New Interpretation Commentary Series, General Editor (Westminster John Knox Press, 2019 – ). Invasion of the Dead: Preaching Resurrection. (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2014). Commentary on Revelation (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009). His most recent articles are: “Preaching Revelation,” in The Oxford Handbook of Christian Homiletics, Carolyn J. Sharp, editor (New York: Oxford University Press, forthcoming). “A Eulogy for Cain Hope Felder,” in Bitter the Chastening Rod: Africana Biblical Interpretation after Stony the Road We Trod in the Age of BLM, SayHerName, and MeToo, Mitzi J. Smith, Angela N. Parker, and Ericka S. Dunbar Hall, editors (New York: Lexington Books/Fortress Academic, 2022) 15-24.

The Rev. Dr. Abraham Smith is Professor of New Testament at Perkins School of Theology, Southern Methodist University. His research areas include Mark, Luke, Acts and the carceral state, Paul and slavery, and Black/Africana biblical studies. His recent publications include: “Arrested Developments: Dismantling the Disciplinary Network of a Surveillance State,” in Reading in These Times, eds. Tat-Siong Benny Liew and Fernando F. Segovia (Atlanta, GA: SBL Press, 2024), 303-336; “Decolonizing Acts: Violence and the Politics of Knowledge,” in Remapping Biblical Studies, eds. Stephanie Buckhanon Crowder and Mary F. Foskett (Atlanta, GA: SBL Press, 2023), 129-144; and “Visualizing Oppression: Slavery and the ‘Arts of Domination’,” in Divided Worlds?: Challenges in Classics and New Testament, eds. Caroline Johnson Hodge, Timothy A. Joseph, and Tat-Siong Benny Liew (Atlanta, GA: SBL Press, 2023), 175-201. Smith is a New Testament editor of  The New Interpreter’s Annotated Study Bible. He is also an ordained minister, National Baptist Church, USA, Inc.

The Rev. Judy Fentress-Williams, Ph.D. is the Dodge Professor of Biblical Interpretation at Virginia Theological Seminary, and Scholar in Residence at the historic Alfred Street Baptist Church. She earned her A.B. in English at Princeton University and her Ph.D. in Religious Studies/Hebrew Bible at Yale University where she developed her academic interest in literary approaches to the Bible.

Her research is shaped by a womanist lens and employs a literary/dialogic approach to the Bible, with particular focus on Genesis, Exodus, Ruth, Esther, Psalms and Scripture and Popular Culture. Recent publications include, “Abraham and the Multiverse” in Interpretation: A Journal of Bible and Theology, (2023), “Lord, How Come Me Here? Psalms and Spirituals as Sanctuaries” in A Sage in New Haven (2023), “Exodus” in The Africana Bible, revised edition (2024).

An ordained Baptist minister, Dr. Fentress-Williams was the Old Testament Editor and contributor, (Genesis and Exodus) for the CEB Women’s Bible (2016), and contributor (Exodus) for The Westminster Study Bible (2024). Her books include “Holy Imagination” (Abingdon Press, 2021), and Ruth (Abingdon Press, 2012). She is currently writing a commentary on Genesis 12-50 in the Interpretation series for Westminster John Knox Press.