Dr. Leslie Baynes is associate professor of New Testament and Second Temple Judaism at Missouri State University. She holds a B.A. in English and an M.A. in Theological Studies from the University of Dayton, and the Ph.D. in Christianity and Judaism in Antiquity from the University of Notre Dame.

How did you decide to become a biblical scholar? Share your autobiographical journey.

I didn’t own a Bible until I was 14 years old. A high school friend gave me a copy of the classic tract “The Four Spiritual Laws” and invited me to attend Campus Life/Youth for Christ, and there, of course, Bible reading was mandatory. I bought a copy of The Way because I liked the contemporary pictures on the cover. I was a nominal, essentially uncatechized Catholic, as many of us born after Vatican II were, even though both sides of my family had been Catholic back to Adam. By the time I was 16, I was leading morning Bible studies at my rural public high school. More→