Faculty & Staff Directory

Christopher W. Skinner, PhD

About

Christopher W. Skinner (PhD, Catholic University of America) is Professor of New Testament and Early Christianity at Loyola University Chicago. Between 2005 and 2010, he served as Instructor of Biblical Studies at St. Mary's Seminary and University in Baltimore, Maryland. In the years just prior to his arrival at Loyola, he was Associate Professor of Religion (2010-2016) and Director of the Honors Program (2015-2016) at Mount Olive College in eastern North Carolina. He has also served as affiliate faculty at East Carolina University (2014-2015) and Loyola University Maryland (2007-2008).

Dr. Skinner is a scholar of New Testament and Christian origins working at the intersection of narratology, narrative criticism, and historical criticism. He has authored or edited nine books and published nearly thirty peer-reviewed articles and book chapters. His research explores literary and historical questions in the narratives about Jesus both within and outside the New Testament. He has written extensively about narrative-critical issues as well as characterization in the Gospels of Mark and John. He has also written about the scholarly reception of the Gospel of Thomas and New Testament ethics. His additional interests include the reception of Jesus within popular culture and the leveraging of ideas about Jesus and the Bible within contemporary political and religious discourse. He is a member of the Society of Biblical Literature, the Studiorum Novi Testamenti Societas, the Catholic Biblical Association of America, and the Chicago Society for Biblical Research. In recent years, he has served on the editorial boards for both the Catholic Biblical Quarterly and the Bulletin for Biblical Research.

Dr. Skinner is currently writing a book on Mark's Christology (under contract with Baker Academic) and working on two larger edited projects: one that re-envisions scholarly questions surrounding the Johannine community (under contract with Lexington/Fortress) and one that serves as a comprehensive exploration of the reception of John's Gospel in theology, history, and culture (under contract with Baylor University Press).

Degrees

PhD, Catholic University of America (2008)
ThM, Dallas Theological Seminary (2001)
BS, East Carolina University (1995)

Program Areas

New Testament and Early Christianity

Research Interests

Gospel of Mark, Gospel and Epistles of John, Gospel of Thomas, Historical Jesus Studies, New Testament Christology, Narrative Criticism & Literary Hermeneutics, New Testament Ethics, Jesus in Film, Media and Religion

Awards

Professor of the Year, Mount Olive College (2013-2014)

Dunning Distinguished Lecturer for Excellence in Teaching and Scholarship, St. Mary's Ecumenical Institute (2008-2009)

Selected Publications

Cruciform Scripture: Cross, Participation, Mission (Eerdmans, 2020; with Nijay Gupta, Andy Johnson, and Drew Strait).

Johannine Ethics: The Moral World of the Gospel and Epistles of John (Fortress, 2017; with Sherri Brown).

Reading John (Cascade Companions; Cascade, 2015).

Character Studies and the Gospel of Mark (Library of New Testament Studies 483; Bloomsbury/T & T Clark, 2014; with Matthew Ryan Hauge).

What Are They Saying About the Gospel of Thomas? (Paulist, 2012).

“The Gospel according to John,” in Cambridge Companion to the Gospels, 2d ed. (ed. Stephen Barton and Todd Brewer; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021), 199-218.

“Narrative Readings of the Religious Authorities in John: A Response to Urban C. von Wahlde,” Catholic Biblical Quarterly 82 (2020): 424-36.

“Ethics and the Gospel of John: Toward an Emerging New Consensus?” Currents in Biblical Research 18 (2020): 280-304.

“The Good Shepherd παροιμία (John 10:1-21) and John’s Implied Audience: A Thought Experiment in Reading the Fourth Gospel,” Horizons in Biblical Theology 40 (2018): 183-201.

“‘The Good Shepherd Lays Down His Life for the Sheep’ (John 10:11, 15, 17): Questioning the Limits of a Johannine Metaphor,” Catholic Biblical Quarterly 80 (2018): 97-113.

“‘Son of God’ or 'God’s Chosen One'? A Text-Critical Problem and Its Narrative-Critical Solution (John 1:34)” Bulletin for Biblical Research 25 (2015): 47-63.

“The Study of Character(s) in Gospel of Mark: A Survey of Research from Wrede to the Performance Critics (1901-2014),” in Character Studies and the Gospel of Mark (ed., Christopher W. Skinner and Matthew Ryan Hauge; LNTS 483; London: Bloomsbury/T & T Clark, 2014), 3-34.