Discipline: Theology, Biblical Studies, including New Testament, early Judaism, and Children in the Bible
I was born in Vancouver and raised in South Vancouver and Richmond. My Mom and Dad both passed in the last few years, but I have four siblings, two of whom are local. I have numerous relatives all throughout the Lower Mainland and the Fraser Valley. Though raised in a large and loving Mennonite family, I was fascinated by a course on Christianity I took with Fr. James Roberts at Langara and decided to continue my studies at St. Michael’s College, the Catholic college at the University of Toronto. From there my interest in Judaism and Christianity continued to grow and I completed my studies at McMaster University, with stops at Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen and University of Haifa.
After I received my PhD, I began to teach at several institutions in Winnipeg but spent most of my time teaching at the University of Winnipeg. While in Winnipeg, I also started a crisis line at Salvation Army and worked as a crisis counsellor at Klinic Community Health Centre. In Winnipeg, my wife Tabitha and I entered the Catholic Church at St. Ignatius Church and soon after we moved to the Twin Cities of Minnesota where I began teaching biblical studies at University of St. Thomas. I taught at UST for twenty wonderful years, rising in the ranks to Full Professor and Director of the MA in Theology program at St. Paul Seminary School of Divinity.
I came home to Vancouver to direct the Centre for Christian Engagement at St. Mark’s College at UBC in 2021.
My wife Tabitha is trained in public health and is completed her MA in Theology at St. Mark’s. My oldest son Jacob teaches English in Japan and has lived there for ten years becoming fluent in Japanese. My youngest son Sam currently lives in Vancouver, where he moved after completing an MA in Japanese religion at McMaster University, and he now directs the marketing division for a tech startup in Vancouver.
Apart from my academic pursuits, which I continue to love, I love dogs, especially Emerald, our four-year-old German Shepherd mix, and our late beloved German Shepherd Hunter, who lived to thirteen years old. I also love to garden, especially vegetables and fruit, and love to can what I grow. I love reading novels, including detective and fantasy novels, excellent TV shows (The Americans, The Sopranos, Flea Bag, Catastrophe, Better Call Saul) and foreign films, and the Vancouver Canucks and the Minnesota Timberwolves.
I am excited to be back home after thirty-nine years living across North America and to teach the students at St. Mark’s College all that I have learned in my study of the Bible, early Christianity, and Judaism.
Education:
Publications:
Liturgy and Life Study Bible general eds. John W. Martens and Fr. Paul Turner. (Liturgical Press, May 2023). (https://litpress.org/Products/6435/Liturgy-and-Life-Study-Bible.)
John W. Martens and Kristine Henriksen Garroway (eds.), Children and Methods: Listening To and Learning From Children in the Biblical World (Brill’s Series in Jewish Studies) (Boston: Brill, 2020). ISSN: 0926-2261
“Fathers and Daughters in 1 Corinthians 7:36-38: The Social Implications of Marriage in Early Christian Families,” in T&T Clark Handbook of Children in the Biblical World, eds. Sharon Betsworth and Julie Faith Parker (London: T&T Clark, 2019) 335-355. ISBN: 978-0-567-67257-5
“Methodology: Who Is a Child and Where Do We find Children in the Greco-Roman World?,” in T&T Clark Handbook of Children in the Biblical World, eds. Sharon Betsworth and Julie Faith Parker (London: T&T Clark, 2019) 223-243. ISBN: 978-0-567-67257-5
The Word on the Street, Year C: Sunday Lectionary Reflections (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2018). ISBN-13: 978-0814649657
Paul, Pastoring God’s People (Alive in the Word) (Little Rock Scripture Study, 2018) ISBN-13: 978-0814645062
The Word on the Street, Year B: Sunday Lectionary Reflections (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2017).
The Word on the Street, Year A: Sunday Lectionary Reflections (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2016).
“Childhood and Sexuality” in Oxford Encyclopedia of the Bible and Gender Studies eds., Todd Penner and Davina Lopez (Oxford University Press, 2014) 55-60.
The Gospel of Mark: A Bible Junkies Complete Online Commentary (Delta, B.C.: Red Maple Press, 2013) i-xii, 13-271.
“The Pope and the Bible” in A Big Heart Open to God (New York: HarperOne, 2013) 113-122.
“Do Not Sexually Abuse Children: The Language of Early Christian Sexual Ethics” in Children in Late Antique Christianity eds., Cornelia B. Horn and Robert Phenix (Tübingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 2010).
With Cornelia Horn: “Let the Little Children Come to Me”: Children and Childhood in Early Christianity (Washington, D.C.: Catholic University Press of America, 2009) ISBN: 978-0-8132-1674-4.
One God, One Law: Philo of Alexandria on the Mosaic and Greco-Roman Law (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 2003) ISBN: 0-391-04190-8.
The End of the World: The Apocalyptic Imagination in Film and Television (Winnipeg: J. Gordon Shillingford Press, 2003). ISBN: 0-920486-29-0.
“‘But from the beginning it was not so’: The Jewish Apocalyptic Context of Jesus’ Teaching on Marriage, Divorce, and Remarriage” in Journal of Moral Theology (Vol. 10, No. 2 (2021) 5–33.
“Are Enslaved Children Called to Come to Jesus? Freeborn and Enslaved Children in John Chrysostom’s On Vainglory” in Biblical Interpretation Vol 28(5) 2020, 584-607.
“Matthew’s Vision of Church” in The Bible Today Volume 58 (Jan/Feb 2020) 7-13.
“Catholic Hermeneutics of the New Testament” in St. Vladimir’s Orthodox Theological Quarterly 63:2 (2019) 213-235.
“Leadership in Absentia (Paul)” in The Bible Today Volume 56 (July 2018) 235-244.
“A Burning Question in Romans 12:20: What do the “Coals of Fire” Mean?” in Catholic Biblical Quarterly 76.2 (April 2014) 291-305.
Previous Appointments:
Current Research Projects: