A native of Ireland, Stephen D. Moore received his Ph.D. in New Testament from the University of Dublin (Trinity College). He is currently Edmund S. Janes Professor of New Testament Studies at the Theological School, Drew University. His research centers on the interface of biblical studies and other contiguous fields, especially literary and cultural studies; postcolonial and decolonial theory; gender studies, queer theory, and affect theory; and ecological studies. He is the author or editor of around thirty scholarly monographs, textbooks, and essay collections.

Sample Courses

Biblical Literature II: Gospels, Letters, Apocalypse
Methods of Biblical Interpretation
The Gospel of Mark
Matthew and Mark
Luke-Acts
The Johannine Literature
Unveiling Revelation
New Testament Narratives
New Testament Letters
Gender and Sexuality in Early Christian Literature
The Bible after Postmodernism
The Bible, Colonialism, and Postcolonialism
Scripture and Social Transformation: The Bible in the Context of Prison
The Bible and Theory
Poststructuralist Theory and the Study of Religion
Poststructuralism and Since
Queer Theory
Affect Theory

Selected Publications

Books Authored

Books & Thematic Issues of Journals Edited

Refereed and Invited Articles

Book Chapters

Current book-in-progress: Decolonial Theory and Biblical Unreading: Delinking Biblical Criticism from Coloniality. Boston and Leiden: Brill, anticipated 2023.

The Bible after Deleuze: Affects, Assemblages, Bodies without Organs. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, anticipated 2022/23.

Revelation: Book of Torment, Book of Bliss. Bloomsbury/T&T Clark International, 2021.

Gospel Jesuses and Other Nonhumans: Biblical Criticism Post-poststructuralism. Semeia Studies, 89. Atlanta: SBL Press, 2017.

Revealing the New Testament. [First courseware introduction to the New Testament.] Revealing Religion Series. West Stockbridge, MA: Thinking Strings, 2017.

Revealing the Gospels: From the Secret Messiah to the Preexistent Son. [Courseware.] Revealing Religion Series. West Stockbridge, MA: Thinking Strings, 2018.

Revealing Paul: Life, Letters, Legacy. [Courseware.] Revealing Religion Series. West Stockbridge, MA: Thinking Strings, 2018.

Revealing the New Testament Narratives: Gospels, Acts, Apocalypse. [Courseware.] Revealing Religion Series. West Stockbridge, MA: Thinking Strings, 2018.

Revealing the New Testament Letters: From Paul to Pseudo-Peter. [Courseware.] Revealing Religion Series. West Stockbridge, MA: Thinking Strings, 2018.

Untold Tales from the Book of Revelation: Sex and Gender, Empire and Ecology.Resources for Biblical Study, 79. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature/SBL Press, 2014.

The Invention of the Biblical Scholar: A Critical Manifesto. Co-authored with Yvonne Sherwood. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2011.

The Bible in Theory: Critical and Postcritical Essays. Resources for Biblical Study, 57. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2010.

Empire and Apocalypse: Postcolonialism and the New Testament. The Bible in the Modern World, 12. Sheffield, U.K.: Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2006.

God's Beauty Parlor: And Other Queer Spaces in and around the Bible. Contraversions: Jews and Other Differences Series. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2001.

God's Gym: Divine Male Bodies of the Bible. Routledge: New York and London, 1996.

The Postmodern Bible. Co-authored with George Aichele et al. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1995.

Poststructuralism and the New Testament: Derrida and Foucault at the Foot of the Cross. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1994.

Mark and Luke in Poststructuralist Perspectives: Jesus Begins to Write. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1992.

Literary Criticism and the Gospels: The Theoretical Challenge. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1989.

Biblical Interpretations in Queer Time(s). Co-edited with Denise Kimber Buell. Biblical Interpretation28:4 (thematic issue), 2020.

Religion, Emotion, Sensation: Affect Theories and Theologies. Co-edited with Karen Bray. Transdisciplinary Theological Colloquia. New York: Fordham University Press, 2019.

Sexual Disorientations: Queer Temporalities, Affects, Theologies. Co-edited with Kent L. Brintnall and Joseph A. Marchal. Transdisciplinary Theological Colloquia Series. New York: Fordham University Press, 2018.

Divinanimality: Animal Theory, Creaturely Theology. Transdisciplinary Theological Colloquia Series. New York: Fordham University Press, 2014.

Affect Theory and the Bible. Co-edited with Jennifer L. Koosed. Biblical Interpretation 22:4-5 (thematic issue), 2014.

Consulting editor forThe Oxford Encyclopedia of Biblical Interpretation. 2 vols. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2013.

Planetary Loves: Spivak, Postcoloniality, and Theology. Co-edited with Mayra Rivera.  Transdisciplinary Theological Colloquia Series.  New York: Fordham University Press, 2011.

Mark and Method: New Approaches in Biblical Studies. Edited with Janice Capel Anderson. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1992. Revised and expanded second edition, 2008.

Anatomies of Narrative Criticism: The Past, Present, and Futures of the Fourth Gospel as Literature. Co-edited with Tom Thatcher. Resources for Biblical Study, 55.  Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2008.

Postcolonial Biblical Criticism: Interdisciplinary Intersections. Edited with Fernando F. Segovia. The Bible and Postcolonialism, 8. London and New York: T. & T. Clark International, 2005.

New Testament Masculinities. Edited with Janice Capel Anderson. Semeia Studies. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature; Leiden, Netherlands: E. J. Brill, 2003.

In Search of the Present: The Bible through Cultural Studies. Semeia 82. Atlanta: Scholars Press, 2000.

Biblical Studies/Cultural Studies: The Third Sheffield Colloquium. Edited with J. Cheryl Exum. Gender, Culture, Theory, 7. JSOT Supplement Series, 266. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1998.

Auguries: The Jubilee Volume of the Sheffield Department of Biblical Studies. Edited with David J. A. Clines. JSOT Supplement Series, 269. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1998.

Biblical Studies and the New Historicism. Biblical Interpretation 5:4 (thematic issue), 1997.

Poststructuralism as Exegesis. Edited with David Jobling. Semeia 54. Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1991.

“A Thousand Tiny Sexes, a Trillion Tiny Jesuses, and the Queer Gospel of Mark.” Journal for Interdisciplinary Biblical Studies2:2 (Spring 2021): 138-68: http://dx.doi.org/10.17613/rdyr-xh46.

“Introduction: Queerness, Time, and Biblical Interpretation” (with Denise Kimber Buell). Biblical Interpretation 28:4 (2020): 385-97.

”Beastly Boasts and Apocalyptic Affects: Reading Revelation in a Time of Trump and a Time of Plague.” Religions 11:7 (2020): 1-20: https://www.mdpi.com/2077-1444/11/7/346/htm.

"What a (Sometimes Inanimate) Divine Animal Has to Teach Us about Being Human: John's Jesus and Other Nonhumans." Literature and Theology 31:4 (2017): 391-404.

"Retching on Rome: Vomitous Loathing and Visceral Disgust in Affect Theory and the Apocalypse of John." Biblical Interpretation 22:4-5 (2014): 503-528.

"Introduction: From Affect to Exegesis" (with Jennifer L. Koosed). Biblical Interpretation 22:4-5 (2014): 381-87.

"Watch the Target: A Post-Postmodernist Response to Ronald Hendel." Journal of Biblical Literature 133:2 (2014): 444-50.

"The Turn to 'Empire' in Biblical Studies." Search 35:1 (2012): 19-27.

"How Typical a Roman Prostitute is Revelation's 'Great Whore'"? (with Jennifer A. Glancy). Journal of Biblical Literature 130:3 (2011): 543-62.

"Part Three: Theory in the First and Second Waves" (with Yvonne Sherwood). Biblical Interpretation 18:3 (2010): 191-225.

"Part Two: The Secret Vices of the Biblical God" (with Yvonne Sherwood). Biblical Interpretation 18:2 (2010): 87-113.

"Biblical Studies 'after' Theory: Onwards Towards the Past. Part One: After 'after Theory' and Other Apocalyptic Conceits" (with Yvonne Sherwood).  Biblical Interpretation 18:1 (2010): 1-27.

"The Empire of God and the Postcolonial Era."  Reflections 95:1 (2008): 69-71.

"A Modest Manifesto for New Testament Literary Criticism: How to Interface with a Literary Studies Field That Is Post-Literary, Post-Theoretical, and Post-Methodological." Biblical Interpretation 14 (2006): 1-24.

"Unsafe Sex: Feminism, Pornography, and the Song of Songs" (with Virginia Burrus). Biblical Interpretation 11:1 (2003): 24-52.

"Radical Orthodox Sex? Francis Watson's Pauline Sexual Ethic." Journal for the Study of the New Testament 25:1 (2002): 97-107.

"The Song of Songs in the History of Sexuality." Church History 69:2 (2000): 328-49.

"Between Birmingham and Jerusalem: Biblical Studies and Cultural Studies." Semeia 82 (2000): 1-32.

"The Book of Procrastination." Parallax: A Journal of Metadiscursive Theory and Cultural Practices 5:1 (1999): 56-58.

"Taking It Like a Man: Masculinity in 4 Maccabees" (with Janice Capel Anderson).
Journal of Biblical Literature 117:2 (1998): 249-73.

"The Quest of the New Historicist Jesus" (with Susan Lochrie Graham). Biblical Interpretation 5:4 (1997): 437-63.

"History after Theory? Biblical Studies and the New Historicism." Biblical Interpretation 5:4 (1997): 288-98.

"Gigantic God: Yahweh's Body." Journal for the Study of the Old Testament   (1996): 87-115.

"True Confessions and Weird Obsessions: Autobiographical Interventions in Literary and Biblical Studies." Semeia 72 (1995): 19-51.

"The Beatific Vision as a Posing Exhibition: Revelation's Hypermasculine Deity." Journal for the Study of the New Testament 60 (1995): 27-55.

"Are There Impurities in the Living Water That the Johannine Jesus Dispenses? Deconstruction, Feminism, and the Samaritan Woman." Biblical Interpretation 1:2 (1993): 207-27. Reprinted in The Interpretation of John, edited by John Ashton. 2nd edition. Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1997.

"'Mirror, Mirror....': Lacanian Reflections on Malbon's Mark." Semeia 62 (1993): 165-71.

"Illuminating the Gospels without the Benefit of Color: A Plea for Concrete Criticism." Journal of the American Academy of Religion 60:2 (1992): 257-79.

"The Gospel of the Look." Semeia 54 (1991): 159-96.

"Stories of Reading: Doing Gospel Criticism as/with a 'Reader.'" Biblical Theology Bulletin 19:3 (1989): 85-93.

"Rifts in (a Reading of) the Fourth Gospel, or: Does Johannine Irony Still Collapse in a Reading That Draws Attention to Itself?" Neotestamentica 23:1 (1989): 5-18.

"The 'Post-' Age Stamp: Does It Stick? Biblical Studies and the Postmodernism Debate." Journal of the American Academy of Religion 57:3 (1989): 543-59.

"Narrative Commentaries on the Bible: Context, Roots, and Prospects." Forum 3:3 (1987): 29-62.

"Negative Hermeneutics, Insubstantial Texts: Stanley Fish and the Biblical Interpreter." Journal of the American Academy of Religion 54:4 (1986): 401-13.

“The Body.” InThe Oxford Handbook of the Synoptic Gospels, edited by Stephen Aherne-Kroll. Oxford: Oxford University Press, anticipated 2022.

“The Way, the Truth, and. . . White? When, How, and Why Jesus Became White.” In Multiracial Biblical Studies, edited by Wongi Park. Semeia Studies. Atlanta: SBL Press, anticipated 2023.

“Empires, the Postcolonial, and the Decolonial.” In Canonical Consciousness: Sixth-Century BCE to First Century CE, edited by John Ahn. 2 vols. Ancient Religions series. New York: T&T Clark, anticipated 2024.

“Violence in the Synoptic Gospels” and “Violence in the Fourth Gospel.” In The Bible and Violence, edited by Mmapula Kebaneilwe, Chris Greenough, Tinyiko Maluleke, and Johanna Stiebert. New York: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, anticipated 2024.

“Hong Kong and Ireland: Protests and Post/colonies.” Pages 207-216 in Hong Kong Protests and Political Theology, edited by Kwok Pui-lan and Francis Ching-Wah Yip. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books/Fortress Academic, 2021.

“What Am I Reading When I Read My Bible?” Pages 177-202 in The Bible and Theory: Essays in Honor of Stephen D. Moore, edited by K. Jason Coker and Scott S. Elliott. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books/Fortress Academic, 2020.

“The Rage for Method and the Joy of Anachronism: When Biblical Scholars Do Affect Theory.” Pp. 187-212 in Reading with Feeling: Affect Theory and the Bible, edited by Fiona C. Black and Jennifer L. Koosed. Semeia Studies, 95. Atlanta: SBL Press, 2019.

“Queer Theory.” Pp. 95-116 in The Oxford Handbook of Gender and Sexuality in the New Testament, edited by Benjamin Dunning. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019.

“A Bible That Expresses Everything While Communicating Nothing: Deleuze and Guattari’s Cure for Interpretosis.” Pp. 108-125 in Exegesis without Authorial Intentions? edited by Clarissa Breu. Biblical Interpretation series. Leiden, Netherlands: Brill, 2019.

“The Rage for Method and the Joy of Anachronism: When Biblical Scholars Do Affect Theory.” In Reading with Feeling: Affect Theory and the Bible, edited by Fiona C. Black and Jennifer L. Koosed. Semi Studies, 95. Atlanta: SBL Press, 2019.

“Those Incommensurate Activities We Call ‘Biblical Studies’: A Future-Oriented History of Their Bifurcated Present.” Pp. 274-96 in Present and Future of Biblical Studies: Celebrating 25 Years of Brill’s Biblical Interpretation, edited by Tat-siong Benny Liew. Biblical Interpretation series. Leiden, the Netherlands: Brill, 2018.

“Why the Johannine Jesus Weeps at the Tomb of Lazarus.” Pp. 287-310 in Mixed Feelings and Vexed Passions: Exploring Emotions in Biblical Literature, edited by Scott F. Spencer. Resources for Biblical Study, 90. Atlanta: SBL Press, 2017.

“Introduction: Queer Disorientations—Four Turns and a Twist” (with Kent L. Brintnall and Joseph A. Marchal). Pp. 1-44 in Sexual Disorientations: Queer Temporalities, Affects, Theologies, edited by Kent L. Brintnall, Joseph A. Marchal, and Stephen D. Moore. Transdisciplinary Theological Colloquia Series. New York: Fordham University Press, 2017.

"Biblical Narrative Analysis from the New Criticism to the New Narratology." Pp. 27-50 in The Oxford Handbook to Biblical Narrative, edited by Danna Nolan Fewell.  Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016.

“The Slight Rise and Precipitous Decline of Postmodernism in Biblical Studies.” Pp. 225-45 in Simulating Aichele: Essays in Bible, Film, Culture and Theory, edited by Melissa C. Stewart. The Bible in the Modern World, 69. Sheffield, UK: Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2015.

"Postcolonial Readings of the Bible." Pp. 273-84 in The New Cambridge History of the Bible; Volume IV: Modernity, Colonialism, and Their Successors, edited by John Riches. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015.

"Masculinity Studies and the Bible." Pp. 540-47 in The Encyclopedia of the Bible and Gender Studies, Volume 1, edited by Julia O’Brien et al.  Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014.

"Introduction: From Animal Theory to Creaturely Theology." Pages 1-16 in Divinanimality: Animal Theory, Creaturely Theology, edited by Stephen D. Moore. Transdisciplinary Theological Colloquia Series. New York: Fordham University Press, 2014.

"Ecotherology." Pages 196-209 in Moore, Divinanimality.

"Ruminations on Revelation's Ruminant, Quadrupedal Christ; or, the Even-Toed Ungulate That Therefore I Am." Pages 301-26 in The Bible and Posthumanism, edited by Jennifer L. Koosed. Semeia Studies, 74. Atlanta: Scholars Press, 2014.

"The Dog-Woman of Canaan, and Other Animal Tales in the Gospel of Matthew." Pages 57-72 in Soundings in Cultural Criticism: Perspectives and Methods in Culture, Power, and Identity in the New Testament, edited by Greg Carey and Francisco Lozada, Jr. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2013.

"Why There Are No Humans or Animals in the Gospel of Mark." Pages 71-94 in Mark as Story: Retrospect and Prospect, edited by Kelly R. Iverson and Christopher W. Skinner. Resources for Biblical Study Series. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature Publications, 2011.

"Paul after Empire."  Pages 9-23, 257-65 in The Colonized Apostle: Paul and Postcolonial Studies, edited by Christopher D. Stanley.  Paul in Critical Contexts Series.  Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2011.

"Final Reflections on Biblical Masculinity." Pp. 240-55 in Men and Masculinity in the Hebrew Bible and Beyond, edited by Ovidiu Creanga. Sheffield, U.K.: Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2010.

"A Tentative Topography of Postcolonial Theology" (with Mayra Rivera). Pp. 3-14, 331-35 in Moore and Rivera, Planetary Loves.

"Situating Spivak."  Pp. 15-30, 335-44 in Planetary Loves: Gayatri Spivak, Postcoloniality, and Theology, edited by Stephen D. Moore and Mayra Rivera.  Transdisciplinary Theological Colloquia Series.  New York: Fordham University Press, 2010.

"True Confessions and Weird Obsessions: Autobiographical Interventions in Literary and Biblical Studies." Pp. 146-62 in Men and Masculinities in Christianity and Judaism: A Critical Reader, edited by Bjorn Krondorfer.  Norwich, U.K.: SCM-Canterbury Press, 2009.

"Metonymies of Empire: Sexual Humiliation and Gender Masquerade in the Book of Revelation." Pp. 71-97 in Postcolonial Interventions, edited by Tat-siong Benny Liew.  The Bible in the Modern World, 23. Sheffield, U.K.: Sheffield Phoenix Press.

"The SS Officer at the Foot of the Cross: A Tragedy in Three Acts."  Pp. 42-59 in Between Author and Audience: Markan Narration, Characterization, and Interpretation, edited by Elizabeth Struthers Malbon.  Sheffield, UK: Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2009.

"Afterword: Things Not Written in This Book."  Pp. 253-58 in Anatomies of Narrative Criticism: The Past, Present, and Futures of the Fourth Gospel as Literature, edited by Tom Thatcher and Stephen D. Moore.  Resources for Biblical Study, 55.  Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature Publications, 2008.

"Deconstructive Criticism: Turning Mark Inside-Out."  Pp. 95-110 in Mark and Method: New Approaches in Biblical Studies, edited by Janice Capel Anderson and Stephen D. Moore.  Expanded 2nd ed.  Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2008.

"Revelation." Pp. 436-54 in A Postcolonial Commentary on the New Testament Writings, edited by Fernando F. Segovia and R. S. Sugirtharajah. The Bible and Postcolonialism Series.  New York: T. & T. Clark International, 2007.

"Mark and Empire." Pp. 70-90 in Recognizing the Margins: Developments in Biblical and Theological Studies. Essays in Honor of Sean Freyne, edited by Werner G. Jeanrond and A. D. H. Mayes. Dublin, Ireland: Columba Press, 2006.

"Mark and Empire: 'Zealot' and 'Postcolonial' Readings." Pp. 193-205 in The Postcolonial Biblical Reader, edited by R. S. Sugirtharajah. Oxford: Blackwell, 2005.

"Questions of Biblical Ambivalence and Authority under a Tree outside Delhi; or, the Postcolonial and the Postmodern." Pp. 79-96 in Moore and Segovia, Postcolonial Biblical Criticism.

"Postcolonial Biblical Criticism: Beginnings, Trajectories, Intersections " (with Fernando F. Segovia). Pp. 1-22 in Postcolonial Biblical Criticism: Interdisciplinary Intersections, edited by Stephen D. Moore and Fernando F. Segovia. The Bible and Postcolonialism Series. London and New York: T. & T. Clark International.

"Derridapocalypse" (with Catherine Keller). Pp. 189-207 in Derrida and Religion: Other Testaments, edited by Kevin Hart and Yvonne Sherwood. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

"Mark and Empire: 'Zealot' and 'Postcolonial' Readings." Pp. 134-48 in Postcolonial Theologies: Divinity and Empire, edited by Catherine Keller, Michael Nausner and Mayra Rivera. St. Louis: Chalice Press, 2004.

"Matthew and Masculinity" (with Janice Capel Anderson). Pp. 67-91 in Moore and Anderson. Atlanta: New Testament Masculinities.

"'O Man, Who Art Thou...?' Masculinity Studies and New Testament Studies." Pp. 1-22 in New Testament Masculinities, edited by Stephen D. Moore and Janice Capel Anderson. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature Publications; Leiden, Netherlands: E. J. Brill, 2003.

"Colonialism/Postcolonialism." Pp. 182-88 in A Handbook for Postmodern Biblical Interpretation, edited by A.K.M. Adam. St Louis: Chalice Press, 2000.

"War Making Men Making War: The Performance of Masculinity in the Revelation to John." Pp. 84-94 in The Apocalyptic Imagination: Aesthetics and Ethics at the End of the World, edited by S. Brent Plate. Glasgow: Trinity St Mungo Press, 1999.

"Biblical Studies/Cultural Studies" (with J. Cheryl Exum). Pp. 19-45 in Exum and Moore, Biblical Studies/Cultural Studies.

"Ugly Thoughts: On the Face and Physique of the Historical Jesus." Pp. 376-99 in
Biblical Studies/Cultural Studies: The Third Sheffield Colloquium, edited by J. Cheryl Exum and Stephen D. Moore. Gender, Culture, Theory, 7; JSOT Supplement Series, 266. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1998.

"Some Ugly Thoughts on the Fourth Gospel at the Threshold of the Third Millenium." Pp. 239-47 in More Interpretations Than the World Can Contain: Readers and Readings of the Fourth Gospel, edited by Fernando Segovia. SBL Symposium Series, 4. Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1998.

"Revolting Revelations." Pp. 183-200 in The Personal Voice in Biblical Interpretation, edited by Ingrid Rosa Kitzberger. New York and London: Routledge, 1998.

"Que(e)rying Paul." Pp. 250-74 in Auguries: The Jubilee Volume of the Sheffield Department of Biblical Studies, edited by David J.A. Clines and Stephen D. Moore.  JSOT Supplement Series, 269. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1998.

"How Jesus' Risen Body Became a Cadaver." Pp. 268-81 in The New Literary Criticism of the New Testament, edited by Edgar V. McKnight and Elizabeth Struthers Malbon. Sheffield, UK: Sheffield Academic Press; Valley Forge, PA: Trinity Press International, 1994.

"God's Own (Pri)son: The Disciplinary Technology of the Cross." Pp. 121-39 in The Open Text: New Directions for Biblical Studies?, edited by Francis Watson. London: SCM Press; Valley Forge, PA: Trinity Press International, 1993.

"The Lives of Mark." Co-authored with Janice Capel Anderson. Pp. 1-22 inMark and Method: New Approaches in Biblical Studies, edited by Janice Capel Anderson and Stephen D. Moore. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1992.

"Deconstructive Criticism: The Gospel of the Mark." Pp. 84-102 in Anderson and Moore, Mark and Method.