Some weeks after taking the Myers-Briggs personality "type indicator," my grad school's psychology office called. "We received your results and think that you should come talk to us," was the message. So I went.

 

"How did you feel on the day that you took the exam?" the psychologist asked, with a penetrating look.

 

"Fine, I guess. I mean, good! Okay? Um, normal, really."

 

"Do you feel that you answered all the questions honestly?"

 

If you've never taken one of these "tests," understand that there are no right or wrong, better or worse answers. It's a personality assessment, and it was all the rage in those days. People seemed pleased with their differing profiles and compared them at will. So I answered, "Of course. I mean, it doesn't really matter does it?"

 

"Well," she sat back looking unconvinced, "We're unable to assign you to the categories confidently. For one thing, you tested both strongly introverted and strongly extroverted."

 

I love solitude, it's true. As a kid in a pretty gregarious family, I'd disappear into the creek behind our house or find a quiet spot in the attic to while away the hours with a captivating book. And I love the quiet company of animals, domestic and wild. Writing is a solitary pursuit, and that's part of why I'm drawn to it. But I also adore my friends, family, and colleagues. I love to hang out with them, to share ideas, goof off together, or talk late into the night about what makes for a good life, the proper role of America's military, or what kind of a sadist would ban carbohydrates (preferably discussed over a heaping plate of pasta and some fine sangiovese). Meeting new people is a special pleasure. I love to hear from readers, become acquainted with a new group of students, and discover mutual friends or similar life experiences. No matter how well or little I know someone, I'm delighted to be surprised by people, how each person is capable of doing or revealing something novel and unexpected. So, yes, I am unapologetically paradoxical.

 

I was born and raised in Duluth, Minnesota among the chosen frozen, as we like to say. I studied biology at St. Olaf College -- a small, liberal arts Lutheran college in the warmer climes of southern Minnesota. After traveling to the Middle East one semester, I added a religious studies major, but I continued to focus on the sciences. I worked with a paleo-pathologist for a couple of summers, and later for a semester in a Univ. of MN pathology lab, studying wound healing. After graduation, the personal got professional, and I shifted to religious studies, earning my Masters and Ph.D. degrees at Boston University in "the history and literature of ancient Israel." I've been teaching religious studies at Virginia Commonwealth University for over a decade and recently earned tenure. There, partly out of a sense of responsibility to share what I've been fortunate enough to learn and partly out of the cold hard need to make a living, I teach about the Bible and religion, in general, to people of all ages, ethnicities, religions, and levels of expertise. During my time as a fellow at the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities, I fell in love in and with Charlottesville, where I now live most of the time.

 

I love stories, so although I traffic in non-fiction and the business of instructing about religion and the Bible in particular, it's the stories in and about the facts that most excite me. Studying religion, especially the Bible, allows me to live and work between categories. Fact and fiction dance together in truth's arena. Holed up in the solitude of my office can be a lonely thing, but on good days, the writing transports me. Even on not so productive days, there is pleasure in the work. I also deeply enjoy what is social about this business -- in my research and imagination, I learn from and about people past and present, and meeting readers near and far is a real delight.

 

I wrote Living through Pain: Psalms and the Search for Wholeness (2005) for Baylor University Press, and my translations of Isaiah, Lamentations, and Numbers will appear in The Voice: Old Testament (Thomas Nelson). My fabulous colleague, Esther Nelson, and I wrote a brief introduction to the academic study of religion. Besides academic journal articles, contributions to edited volumes, and brief pieces for news outlets, my writing has appeared in Publishers Weekly, Christian Century, Beliefnet, The Huffington Post, The Washington Post's "On Faith," Good Morning America's "Spirituality" webpage. My agent is Chris Park at Foundry Literary + Media (spam-proofed email address: cpark at foundry dot com).

 

I live in both Charlottesville and Richmond with nearly 300 pounds' worth of happy dogs, a small alley cat, and the most amazing man.