Lisa Bowens

Biography

Lisa Marie Bowens, PhD ’14, associate professor of New Testament at Princeton Theological Seminary, earned a BS (cum laude), MSBE, and MLIS from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, an MTS and ThM from Duke Divinity School, and a PhD from Princeton Theological Seminary. She is the first African American woman to earn tenure in Princeton Seminary’s Bible department. Her first book, An Apostle in Battle: Paul and Spiritual Warfare in 2 Corinthians 12:1-10 (Mohr Siebeck), is a revision of her dissertation and examines Paul’s ascent to the third heaven through a cosmic/apocalyptic lens. It traces martial imagery in the letter and explores how this imagery facilitates understanding Paul’s journey as an example of spiritual warfare. Her second book, African American Readings of Paul: Reception, Resistance, and Transformation (Eerdmans), is the first book to investigate a historical trajectory of how African Americans have understood Paul and his letters. The monograph covers African American writings from the 1700s to the mid-twentieth century and demonstrates how these interpreters utilized the Pauline corpus to resist and protest injustice and racism in their own contexts. She has also co-edited Preaching Romans From Here: Diverse Voices Engage Paul’s Most Famous Letter (with Scot McKnight and Joseph Modica) and Do Black Lives Matter?: How Christian Scriptures Speak to Black Empowerment (with Dennis Edwards). An award-winning author, she was designated by Patheos as one of the 50 New Testament Scholars to read and follow and recently delivered the prestigious Speaker Lectures at Oxford University in 2023. Among her current writing projects are two commentaries, one on 2 Corinthians and one on 1-2 Thessalonians.

Her research interests include Paul and apocalyptic literature, Pauline anthropology, Pauline epistemology, discipleship in the gospels, African American Pauline Hermeneutics, and New Testament exegesis and interpretation. She is a member of a number of professional societies, including the Society of Biblical Literature, the Society of Pentecostal Studies, and the Society for the Study of Black Religion. She was a recipient of the Wabash Early Career Teaching Fellowship, the Louisville Institute First Book Grant for Scholars of Color, and a past Fund For Theological Education fellow. Some of her current courses are Paul and Apocalyptic Thought, Greek Exegesis of 2 Corinthians, African American Pauline Hermeneutics, and Martin Luther King, Jr and the Apocalyptic Imagination.

Dr. Bowens discusses her book An Apostle in Battle on The Distillery podcast.

Dr. Bowens discusses her book, African American Readings of Paul on the OnScript podcast.

Publications

Books

• African American Readings of Paul: Reception, Resistance, and Transformation (Eerdmans, 2020)
• Preaching Romans From Here: Diverse Voices Engage Paul’s Most Famous Letter, coedited with Scot McKnight and Joseph Modica (Wipf and Stock, 2023)
• Do Black Lives Matter?: How Christian Scriptures Speak to Black Empowerment, coedited with Dennis Edwards (Wipf and Stock, 2023)
• An Apostle in Battle: Paul and Spiritual Warfare in 2 Corinthians 12:1-10 (Mohr Siebeck, 2017).

Selected Articles

• “Martin Luther King, Jr. and Apocalyptic Thought.” Journal of the Bible and its Reception Vol. 10 No. 2 (2023): 151-172.
• “Paul’s Spirit Speech: Invasion and Disruption in Romans 8:19-23” in The Spirit Says: Inspiration and Interpretation in Israelite, Jewish, and Early Christian Texts. Edited by Ron Herms, Kevin Spawn, and Archie Wright. New York: De Gruyter, 2021.
• “Hearing Scripture as Protest and Resistance.” Word and World 41 Special Issue (2021): 4-12 2021
• “God and Time: Exploring Black Notions of Prophetic and Apocalyptic Eschatology” in T&T Clark Handbook of African American Theology, eds. Antonia Michelle Daymond, Frederick L. Ware, and Eric Lewis Williams (New York: T & T Clark, 2019)
• “Ephesians,” “Philippians,” “Colossians” in The Preacher’s Bible Handbook, ed. O. Wesley Allen (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2019)
• “Spirit-Shift: Paul, the Poor, and The Holy Spirit’s Ethic of Love and Impartiality in the Eucharist Celebration,” in The Holy Spirit and Social Justice Interdisciplinary Global Perspectives: Scripture and Theology, eds. Antipas Harris and Michael Palmer (Lanham, MD: Seymour Press, 2019)
• “Liberating Paul: African Americans’ Use of Paul in Resistance and Protest,” in Practicing with Paul: Reflections on Paul and the Practices of Ministry in Honor of Susan G. Eastman, ed. Presian Burroughs (Oregon: Cascade Books, 2018)
• “Painting Hope: Formational Hues of Paul’s Spiritual Warfare Language in 2 Corinthians 10-13,” in Practicing with Paul: Reflections on Paul and the Practices of Ministry in Honor of Susan G. Eastman, ed. Presian Burroughs (Oregon: Cascade Books, 2018)
• “Divine Desire: Paul’s Apocalyptic God of Rescue,” Theology Today 75 no 1 (2018): 9-21
• “Investigating the Apocalyptic Texture of Paul’s Martial Imagery in 2 Corinthians 4–6,” JSNT 39 (2016): 3–15
• “The Role of John the Baptist in Matthew’s Gospel,” Word and World 30 (2010): 311–18