Dr. Bryan Whitfield

Dr. Bryan Whitfield is delighted to teach at Mercer, a place where he joins his vocation as a teacher of Christian scripture with his Baptist roots. He is a Georgia native, with Smyrna as his hometown.

Before coming to Mercer in 2002, he taught at Emory University’s Candler School of Theology and Columbia Theological Seminary. Previous jobs focused on teaching and ministry. He taught at Walton and Campbell high schools in Cobb County and at Athens Academy. He has served as a campus minister in Connecticut, a hospital chaplain in New Orleans, and a staff member at an inner-city church in Louisville, Kentucky. He was the associate pastor of a congregation in Newnan and the bivocational pastor of a church in northeast Georgia.

In spring 2014, he was visiting research professor of New Testament at Johannes Goethe University in Frankfurt, Germany. In spring 2022, he held the Kilian McDonnell Fellowship as a resident scholar at the Collegeville Institute at St. John’s University in Minnesota.

Education

• Ph.D., Emory University
• M.Ed., University of Georgia
• M.A., Indiana University
• M.Div., Southern Baptist Theological Seminary
• M.A.R., Yale Divinity School
• B.A., University of Georgia

Specialty

New Testament and early Christianity; Hellenistic Greek; Great Books

Professional Interests

Dr. Whitfield’s current research focuses on the significance of the book of Numbers in the Hebrew Bible for understanding the New Testament’s book of Hebrews. He is a frequent contributor to the lectionary resource, Working Preacher. He enjoys teaching Greek, Engaging the New Testament, and Engaging the Hebrew Bible, as well as upper-level courses on Jesus and Paul. He has taught all of the courses in the Great Books program as well.

Other Interests

Dr. Whitfield’s interests outside of the classroom include preaching and teaching in churches, cycling, swimming, watching college football, reading novels and poetry, and singing with both church and civic groups.

Recent Publications

• “The Columbus Roberts Department of Religion at Mercer, 1939-2021,” Perspectives in Religious Studies 51, no. 2 (Summer 2024), 123-37.
• “Josephus and Hebrews 4:1-13: The Promise of Entering God’s Rest.” In Reading Hebrews in Context: The Sermon and Second Temple Judaism edited by Ben C. Blackwell, John K. Goodrich, and Jason Maston, 54-60. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Academic, 2023.
• “Teaching Dante in the History of Christian Theology.” Religions 10 (2019), 372-78.
• “Teaching Augustine’s Confessions in the Context of Mercer’s Great Books Program,” Religions 6 (2015), 107-112. Repr. pp. 103-108 in Teaching Augustine. Ed. Scott McGinnis and Christopher Metress. Basel: MDPI, 2015.
• Book: Joshua Traditions and the Argument of Hebrews 3 and 4 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2013).

Contact Dr. Bryan Whitfield

(478) 301-5409
whitfield_bj@mercer.edu
Office: Knight Hall, Room 312A