How did a small Jewish group following a failed Messiah go on to reshape the Roman world? This is the question that first drew me to biblical studies and still captivates me. My research tries to answer this question by looking at the earliest accounts of Jesus, the Gospels. This work began with my PhD at the University of Edinburgh, which was then published as Writing with Scripture: Scripturalized Narrative in the Gospel of Mark (London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2022). The book argues that many of the episodes in Jesus' 'life' were actually pieced together out of stories in the Hebrew Bible. This, I argue, was a common way of composing new narrative in ancient Jewish literature.

From 2020-2024 I was a postdoctoral researcher and teaching fellow in New Testament & Christian Origins at the University of Edinburgh. During this time I managed three interdisciplinary projects with Professor Mona Siddiqui looking at contested virtues like gratitude, loyalty and hope. Together we edited a volume, A Theology of Gratitude: Christian and Muslim Perspectives (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2023). A second volume, A Theology of Loyalty, is forthcoming.

My current project, Jesus and Jerusalem: The Gospels among Jewish Responses to 70 CE, argues that the Gospel story from Mark onwards first developed as a Jewish theodicy to explain why God allowed the Romans to destroy Jerusalem. The project draws comparisons between the earliest Gospels and Josephus, 2 Baruch, Rabbinic literature and other Jewish responses to 70 CE. From the second century the Gospel story was weaponised against Jews by Christian authors. But it began as an intra-Jewish explanation of the failure of the Jewish revolt.

Research interests and PhD supervision

I am interested in the social and religious development of Jewish and Christian identities in the early centuries CE. I am particularly interested in Jewish and Christian responses to the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans in 70 CE and Bar Kokhba's revolt in the 130s CE. How have these events shaped the writings that came to be included in the New Testament, esp. the Gospels? What role did they play in the development of distinct and overlapping identities for Jews and Christians? How have they featured in the history of Christian anti-Judaism?

In addition I am interested in:

• The intersection of gender and empire in the Gospels
• Theodicy in ancient West Asian and Mediterranean writings
• Ideologies of the land in early Christian writings
• Jewish and Christian writings in the context of ancient compositional practices
• Christian, Muslim and Jewish approaches to virtues and affects like gratitude, loyalty and hope

Teaching

I teach undergraduate and postgraduate modules on Jesus, the Gospels, ancient religious texts, biblical languages, women and gender in the bible and the literary and artistic reception of biblical narrative.

Expertise and public engagement

I am a regular guest on podcasts and blogs including Biblical Time Machine and the New Books Network. I am available for comment on anything bible-related in print, digital, radio and television.

Selected publications

• 'The Son of Man and the Sea: Hydromachy and Conquest in Mark's Sea Voyages', Journal for the Study of the New Testament (2025): forthcoming.
• 'The Omens at Jesus's Death (Mark 15:33-39) and the Divine Abandonment of the Temple before its Destruction in 70 CE', Journal of Biblical Literature 142 (2023): 657-675.
• A Theology of Gratitude: Christian and Muslim Perspectives, co-edited volume with Mona Siddiqui. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2023.
• 'The Many Fiery Furnaces of Daniel 3: The Evolution of a Jewish and Christian Literary Model', Biblical Interpretation 30 (2022): 312-328.
• Writing with Scripture: Scripturalized Narrative in the Gospel of Mark, Library of New Testament Studies 670. Bloomsbury: T&T Clark, 2022.