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whitfield_bj@mercer.edu

Bryan J. Whitfield

I am delighted to be part of The Roberts Department of Christianity at Mercer University. It is a place that encourages me to join my vocation as a teacher and scholar of Christian scripture with my roots in the Baptist tradition. A native of Georgia, I grew up in Smyrna, and graduated from the University of Georgia with a B.A. in comparative literature, French, and mathematics. My theological education took me out of the state as I earned degrees from Yale Divinity School, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, and Indiana University. I did further graduate work at Duke University, and I am currently completing the Ph.D. in New Testament from Emory University. My dissertation examines how Jewish traditions about Joshua shaped the portrait of Jesus in the letter to the Hebrews.

Along the way my vocation as a teacher and minister has taken many forms. I have taught at the Candler School of Theology at Emory University and at Columbia Theological Seminary. I also have taught at Walton and Campbell High Schools in Cobb County and at Athens Academy. I have served as a campus minister in Connecticut, as a hospital chaplain in New Orleans, and as a staff member at an inner-city church in Louisville, Kentucky. I have been the associate pastor of a congregation in the Atlanta suburbs and the bivocational pastor of a church in rural northeast Georgia.

Outside of the classroom my interests include preaching and teaching in churches, cycling, watching college football, reading novels and poetry, and singing with both church and civic groups.