Joel Baden is Professor of Hebrew Bible at Yale University, and the Director of the Center for Continuing Education at the Yale Divinity School. He works widely in the field of biblical studies, with special attention to the literary history of the Pentateuch.

Professor Shawna Dolansky is an ancient historian who specializes in the emergence of the Hebrew Bible within its ancient Near Eastern context. Curious about the real lives of religious and literary figures and their authors, her work cuts across disciplinary boundaries of religious studies, literature, history, anthropology, and archaeology, and spans several subfields, including goddesses, magic, figurines, gender and social structure, the history of biblical interpretation, and the integration of text, archaeology, politics, and imagination in the writing of history. Current research interests include a study of the history of Adam and Eve in popular culture, and re-thinking the figure of Jezebel in the Hebrew Bible in light of historical and archaeological considerations; both are part of a larger digital humanities graphic history project, "Women of the Ancient World" (coming soon at woawhistory.com). 

Dan McClellan is a public scholar of the Bible and religion who works to increase public access to the academic study of the Bible and religion and to combat the spread of misinformation about the same. He received his PhD in theology and religion from the University of Exeter, and his research specializations focus on the conceptualization of deity, scripture, and religious identity through the methodological lenses of critical biblical studies, cognitive linguistics, and the cognitive science of religion. In addition to a number of journal articles, book chapters, and dictionary and encyclopedia entries, he has published the open-access monograph, YHWH's Divine Images: A Cognitive Approach, and the New York Times bestselling trade book, The Bible Says So: What We Get Right (and Wrong) About Scripture's Most Controversial Issues.

Megan Lewis is best known to the biblically-curious audience as the host of the Misquoting Jesus Podcast, but the history, literature, and cultures of Mesopotamia are her academic passion. She is the driving force behind the Digital Hammurabi YouTube channel and podcast, where she breaks down ancient history, texts, and languages with clarity, warmth, and the occasional metaphorical eye-roll at academic snobbery.

Megan holds a B.A. and M.Phil. in Ancient History and Assyriology from Birmingham University (UK), and an M.A. in Near Eastern Studies from Johns Hopkins University. She completed all but the dissertation in a Ph.D. program at Johns Hopkins before deciding that her time (and sanity) might be better spent making ancient knowledge available to more people. She might finish the doctorate someday — but in the meantime, she’s got a camera, a microphone, and a mission. Sometimes she even remembers to turn the microphone on!

John J. Collins is Holmes Professor of Old Testament Criticism and Interpretation Emeritus at Yale University, and honorary professor at the University of Pretoria. He received his Ph. D. from Harvard (1972). His most recent books are The Invention of Judaism. Torah and Jewish Identity from Deuteronomy to Paul (University of California, 2017), What Are Biblical Values? (Yale, 2019) and The Rule of the Association and Related Texts (with James Nati; Oxford, 2024). He served as general editor of the Anchor Yale Bible and Anchor Yale Bible Reference Library (2008–2025). He has been president of the Catholic Biblical Association and of the Society of Biblical Literature, and is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He holds honorary degrees from University College Dublin and the University of Zurich, and has received the Burkitt medal for biblical scholarship from the British Academy. 

Ronald Hendel is Norma and Sam Dabby Professor Emeritus of Hebrew Bible and Jewish Studies at University of California, Berkeley. He is the author of many books and articles on biblical studies, including Genesis 1-11: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary (Anchor Yale Bible), How Old is the Hebrew Bible?, and The Book of Genesis: A Biography. He is general editor of The Hebrew Bible: A Critical Edition (Society of Biblical Literature).

Esther J. Hamori is Professor of Hebrew Bible at Union Theological Seminary in New York. Her research is focused on conceptions of divine-human contact and communication in the Hebrew Bible and other ancient Middle Eastern literature. Dr. Hamori is the author of God’s Monsters: Vengeful Spirits, Deadly Angels, Hybrid Creatures, and Divine Hitmen of the Bible (Broadleaf Books, 2023), which explores God’s deployment of an entourage of monsters in the Hebrew Bible and New Testament. Her other publications include Women’s Divination in Biblical Literature: Prophecy, Necromancy, and Other Arts of Knowledge (Yale University Press, 2015), which brings to light the full range of women’s divinatory activities in the Hebrew Bible. She earned her Ph.D. from New York University (Department of Hebrew and Judaic Studies, 2004), M.Div. from Yale Divinity School (1997), and B.A. from Sarah Lawrence College with a major in Violin Performance (1994).

David Carr has written extensively on Genesis, including numerus articles and four books focused on the sources and meaning of Reading the Fractures of Genesis (1996), The Formation of Genesis (2020) and Genesis 1-11: A Commentary (2021) and Unmaking Eden: Genesis and the Domestication of the World. Forthcoming in Fall from Cambridge University Press.

He is an internationally-recognized authority on the formation of Genesis and other biblical books and a leader in the emergent field of human-animal studies and the Bible. He is Professor of Hebrew Bible at Union Theological Seminary in New York City, book review editor for Vetus Testamentum, member of editorial boards for Vetus Testamentum, Biblical Interpretation and the International Exegetical Commentary on the Old Testament, and recipient of the Alexander von Humboldt Fellowship and numerous other grants and awards.

Robert R. Cargill, PhD, is the Roger A. Hornsby Associate Professor in the Classics at the University of Iowa where he teaches courses in Hebrew Bible, Second Temple Judaism, biblical archaeology, and biblical languages. He has authored research and popular books and has excavated at the sites of Banias, Omrit, Haẓor, and Tel Azekah (all in Israel). An expert in contemporary media and public-facing scholarship, he is a veteran of the television and documentary film industry, where he has been active for over 20 years including consulting, hosting, and appearing in shows for Nat Geo, CNN, History Channel, Discovery, FoxNation, and Netflix. He is Co-Founder and Editor of the Bible & Archaeology YouTube media project at Iowa.

Martien Halvorson-Taylor (PhD, Harvard University), Associate Professor at the University of Virginia, is a scholar of the Hebrew Bible. Her research focuses on the Babylonian Exile as formative for ancient Judaism and the origins of the Bible. She is the author of Enduring Exile: The Metaphorization of Exile in the Hebrew Bible (Brill, 2011) and co-edited Women and Exilic Identity in the Hebrew Bible (T&T Clark, 2018) and the forthcoming Oxford Handbook on Biblical Exile & Forced Migration. She is completing a commentary on the Song of Songs (Kohlhammer, forthcoming), an erotic love poem in the Bible that says what cannot otherwise be said. She authored Writing the Bible (Audible/Great Courses) and co-hosts the podcast Sacred & Profane, bringing deep scholarship to a wide audience. With her students, Halvorson-Taylor, an award-winning teacher, explores how biblical narratives (Esther, Genesis) and poetry (Song of Songs, Job) have been interpreted to address enduring human questions.

Dr. Kenton Sparks currently serves as Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs at Eastern University, providing leadership for the university’s academic, student affairs, athletics, marketing, and enrollment offices. He joined the Eastern community as a professor of Biblical Studies in 2000. Kent served as our Provost from 2012-2014, as our Vice President for Marketing & Enrollment from 2014-2017, and then returned to the Provost Office in 2017. In addition to his experience in administration, Kent is an accomplished scholar and teacher. As Professor of Biblical Studies at Eastern, he has written six books and numerous articles, has served as the regional president for the Society of Biblical Literature, and has been tapped as Teacher of the Year at Eastern University; he is also a recipient of the Lindback Foundation Award for Excellence in Teaching. Dr. Sparks earned his Bachelor's degree in Biblical Studies from Johnson University, the Master's degree in Hebrew Bible from Columbia International University, the Master's in Business Administration from Kennesaw State University, and the Doctor of Philosophy in Religious Studies from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. Although his PhD thesis was completed in Hebrew Bible under the direction of Dr. John Van Seters, Professor Bart Ehrman served as the outside examiner for his minor in New Testament and early Judaism. Sparks is an ordained minister in two denominations. He is married since 1988 to Cheryl Bailey Sparks, a marriage & family at Eastern, and has two adult daughters, Emily and Cara Ellen.

Elaine Pagels (Ph.D., Harvard University) is the Harrington Spear Paine Professor of Religion at Princeton University, renowned for her groundbreaking work on early Christianity, Gnosticism, and the formation of Christian orthodoxy. She is the author of multiple influential books, including The Gnostic Gospels (1979), which won the National Book Award and National Book Critics Circle Award, and The Origin of Satan (1995), which explores how Christianity constructed the concept of evil. Her work has reshaped scholarly and public understanding of non-canonical texts and the diversity of early Christian beliefs. Outside academia, Pagels has been a frequent contributor to public conversations on religion, appearing in major documentaries and interviews. She is also the author of the memoir Why Religion? A Personal Story (2018), which weaves together her scholarship and personal experiences of loss, grief, and resilience.

Dr. Joshua Bowen holds a BS in Religion from Liberty University, a ThM in Old Testament from Capital Bible Seminary, an MA in Ancient Near Eastern Studies and a PhD in Assyriology (with a minor in Hebrew Bible) from the Johns Hopkins University. Dr. Bowen has written books and articles in the fields of Hebrew Bible and Ancient Near Eastern Studies, including The Atheist Handbook to the Old Testament, Did the Old Testament Endorse Slavery? Learn to Read Ancient Sumerian, Learn to Read Ancient Hebrew, Learn to Read Ancient Akkadian, and a commentary on the book of Leviticus (forthcoming). He teaches courses on ancient languages, including learning how to read Sumerian, Akkadian, and Biblical Hebrew. He spends a great deal of time on social media engaging with Christian apologetics, including topics in the Hebrew Bible like intertextuality, slavery, rape, and divine commands of violence and genocide.

Joseph Lam is Associate Professor of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he specializes in the study of the Hebrew Bible and its Ancient Near Eastern Context. He is a textual scholar who reads over 10 ancient languages. He is the author of Patterns of Sin in the Hebrew Bible (Oxford University Press, 2016), as well as numerous other academic publications in the field. He has also produced a series of lectures with The Great Courses titled “Creation Stories of the Ancient World,” released in 2023.

Sarah Shectman is managing editor at the Posen Library of Jewish Culture and Civilization, where she has worked since 2021. She earned her doctorate in Near Eastern and Judaic Studies from Brandeis University. Her research focuses on constructions of gender and the composition history of the Pentateuch. She is the author of Women in the Pentateuch: A Feminist and Source-Critical Analysis (Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2009) and co-editor of The Strata of the Priestly Writings: Contemporary Debate and Future Directions (TVZ, 2009). Sarah lives in San Francisco.

Don't miss Bart Ehrman's exclusive post-event breakdown, where he summarizes each talk and provides his insightful analysis. Gain deeper understanding as Bart highlights the key contributions of each lecture to Hebrew Bible scholarship, offering his unique perspectives on the discussions. 

Don't miss Bart Ehrman's exclusive post-event breakdown, where he summarizes each talk and provides his insightful analysis. Gain deeper understanding as Bart highlights the key contributions of each lecture to New Testament scholarship, offering his unique perspectives on the discussions. 

Join us for a thought-provoking roundtable discussion titled “What are the most exciting scholarly breakthroughs in the study of Genesis over the past fifty years?"

Join us for a thought-provoking roundtable discussion titled “The Contraditions of Genesis: How (Some) Scholars Try to Reconcile Them?"

Join scholars Kenton Sparks and Ron Hendel as they explore "The Twelve Tribes: History, Myth, or Literary Construction?" 

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