I am a scholar of the New Testament and early Christianity, with a focus on the Pauline epistles and Graeco-Roman political theory and historiography. I am a Ph.D. candidate (ABD) in New Testament and Christian Origins at the University of Edinburgh and am currently on track to defend my dissertation in summer 2027.
My primary research interests center on the New Testament (particularly the letters of Paul), and ancient political thought. My dissertation examines the use of Graeco-Roman political rhetoric in the Epistle to the Ephesians, particularly as it addresses what has often been termed “the Gentile problem.” I argue that reading Ephesians within what I describe as the “grammar of politeia”—the discourse of citizenship found in Greco-Roman and Jewish literature—sheds new light on the letter’s treatment of the Gentile Christ-followers’ relationship with the people of Israel, the Mosaic law, its vision of the new humanity in Christ, and its household code (Eph. 5–6). By attending to the Greco-Roman and Jewish dimensions of the text as well as the theological, my dissertation will provide a more historically plausible reading of the text than those currently on offer.
In addition to my scholarship, I am a devoted educator with extensive experience in graduate education and a devotion to cultivating classrooms that are welcoming, hospitable, and intellectually rigorous. I am experienced in both residential and online teaching modalities, as well as teaching diverse audiences from middle school to second-career adults.
Zachary L. McNeal 