Michael Peppard is a scholar and teacher who brings to light the meanings of the Bible and early Christian materials in their social, political, artistic, and ritual contexts.
A professor of theology at Fordham University, he received his Ph.D. in Religious Studies from Yale University, with prior degrees from Yale Divinity School, its Institute of Sacred Music, and the University of Notre Dame. He also offers frequent commentary on current events at the nexus of religion, politics, and culture for venues such as Commonweal, where he is a frequent contributor, as well as The New York Times, The Washington Post, CNN, and PBS.
His first book, The Son of God in the Roman World: Divine Sonship in Its Social and Political Context (Oxford, 2011), is a work of contextual early Christian theology within Roman imperial society. It received the Manfred Lautenschläger Award for Theological Promise, sponsored by the University of Heidelberg. His second book, The World’s Oldest Church: Bible, Art, and Ritual at Dura-Europos, Syria (Yale, 2016), offers a theological and liturgical reinterpretation of the artistic remains of the oldest securely datable church building, from third-century Syria. It was featured in The New York Times Sunday Review upon its release and subsequently in other major media, such as a CBS special on religion, art, and cultural heritage.
His latest book, How Catholics Encounter the Bible (Oxford, 2024), presents a diverse curation of the ways in which biblical narratives and themes have infused Catholic worship, culture, and imagination. Dr. Peppard has over 30 scholarly articles and essays appearing in over a dozen journals, including flagship publications for biblical studies, early Christian studies, liturgical studies, Jewish-Christian relations, and Catholic theology. One of these received the 2018 Eusebius Essay Prize from The Journal of Ecclesiastical History, and another won the 2014 Catherine Mowry LaCugna “best article” award from the Catholic Theological Society of America.
Dr. Peppard’s regular course topics include the New Testament, early Christianity, art and ritual, religion and politics, and the languages of Greek and Coptic. As a break from studying the past, Dr. Peppard participates in campus conversations about religion in public life, in part through his affiliation with the Curran Center for American Catholic Studies. He hails originally from Colorado and lives in New York, where he has also served as an elected public servant.
