The Wonder of Scripture

Stephan Taeger

 
Stephan Taeger was born and raised in Western Massachusetts. Following a mission to Las Vegas, he received a bachelor's degree from Utah Valley State College, a master's degree from the University of Utah, and a PhD in Instructional Psychology and Technology from BYU. Before coming to BYU, Stephan worked for Seminaries and Institutes for about 17 years. Stephan and his wife Kirsten have six children.

Matthew Bowman

Matthew Bowman is the Howard W. Hunter Chair of Mormon Studies at Claremont Graduate University. He is a specialist in American religious history, with particular interests in Mormonism, new religious movements, and the development of the concept of “religion” in the United States. He is the author or co-editor of The Mormon People: The Making of an American Faith (Random House, 2012), Women and Mormonism: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives (University of Utah, 2016), and, most recently, Christian: The Politics of a Word in America (Harvard University Press, 2018). He is co-editor of the University of Illinois Press series Introductions to Mormon Thought, and is working on a book-length study of the mid-twentieth-century correlation movement in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He has written for the Washington Post, Slate, The New Republic, and the Huffington Post, and has appeared on MSNBC and NPR.

Ethan Busby

Ethan Busby is a political psychologist specializing in extremism, public opinion, racial and ethnic politics, and quantitative methods at BYU. His articles have appeared in Journal of Politics, Journal of Experimental Political Science, and Political Behavior. He has published popular pieces in such diverse places as TechTimes, The Atlantic, and The Washington Post.

Matthew Wickman

Matthew Wickman, professor in English at BYU, teaches and writes about literature and religion, with particular emphasis on the relationship between literature and religious experience. He serves as co-chair of the Christian Spirituality Unit of the American Academy of Religion as well as communications director for the Society for the Study of Christian Spirituality. He was the founding director of the BYU Humanities Center, and he now serves as coordinator of the BYU Faith and Imagination Institute, editor of the academic journal Literature and Belief, and host of the ecumenical Faith and Imagination podcast. He has published more than fifty articles and book chapters, but we are most enthused about his Life to the Whole Being: The Spiritual Memoir of a Literature Professor (Maxwell Institute, 2022). In 2025, Wickman was named University Professor of English at BYU.

James Goldberg

James Goldberg is a poet, novelist, essayist, playwright, and occasional literary translator. By day, he writes for the Church History Department. His family is Jewish on one side, Sikh on the other, and Latter-day Saint in the middle. His latest book, Latter-day Sikh (2025) is about his grandfather’s spiritual journey. Unbound by literary genres, he has written humorous fiction (Tales of the Chelm First Ward), a retelling of Christ’s life (The Five Books of Jesus), poetry collections (Let Me Drown with Moses, Phoenix Song, A Book of Lamentations), YA fiction (The Bollywood Lovers’ Club), and more.

Tammi J. Schneider

Tammi J. Schneider is a professor of religion at Claremont Graduate University. Her research draws together the varied fields of archaeology, Assyriology, and biblical studies in an effort to understand the ancient Near East, especially the interactions among various peoples. She teaches ancient Near Eastern History, literature, archaeology and religion, and women in the Hebrew Bible. Her books include: Judges in the Berit Olam series (Liturgical Press, 2000), Sarah: Mother of Nations (The Continuum International Publishing Group, 2004), Mothers of Promise: Women in the Book of Genesis (Baker Academic Publishing Company, 2008), and An Introduction to Ancient Near Eastern Religion (Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2011). She is president of the Pacific Coast Region of the Society of Biblical Literature. Schneider has worked on numerous archaeological excavations in Israel, and she is the head of the educational program at the Tel Akko Excavations, where she excavates every year with students from CGU and The Claremont Colleges.

Lisa DeLong

Lisa DeLong studied painting and received an MA in Art History at Brigham Young University. She studied in London with Professor Keith Critchlow and Paul Marchant, two of the world’s foremost geometers. She completed her doctoral studies at The Prince's School of Traditional Arts in 2007, where she now works as Outreach Programme Manager, designing and conducting educational workshops in places like Azerbaijan, Abu Dhabi, Pakistan, Malaysia, China, and Pakistan. Her book, Curves: Flowers, Foliates and Flourishes in the Formal Decorative Arts, was published in 2013. She presented a TEDx talk on geometry and education at Brigham Young University in 2016.

Amy Jensen

Amy Jensen is a professor in Theater and Media Arts at BYU, where she serves as associate dean. She is the executive producer of the BRAVO Professional Performing Arts Series. She teaches arts education courses in both theatre and media arts education, where she works with undergraduate pre-service teachers and master’s candidates. Book publications include the co-edited volume (Re)imagining Literacies for Content-area Classrooms (Teachers College Press, 2010), and Arts Literacies and Education (Routledge, 2015) with Dr. Roni Jo Draper. Amy was also the executive producer of the web documentary series By Study, By Faith, which features stories about BYU faculty women, faith, and education. Dr. Jensen has served as the co-editor of the Journal of Media Literacy Education and the General Editor for the Youth Theatre Journal. She currently serves as the chair of the College Board’s Arts Academic Advisory Committee and as a member of their Academic Assembly Council, where she consults on the development of Advanced Placement Arts courses and other arts initiatives.

Rosalynde Frandsen Welch

Rosalynde Frandsen Welch is Associate Director and a Research Fellow at the Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship. Her research focuses on Latter-day Saint scripture, theology, and literature. She holds a PhD in early modern English literature from the University of California, San Diego, and a BA in English from Brigham Young University. She is the author of Ether: a brief theological introduction, published by the Maxwell Institute, as well as numerous articles, book chapters, and reviews on Latter-day Saint thought. She is the driving force and voice behind the Maxwell Institute podcast series. She and co-author Adam Miller have written Seven Gospels: The Many Lives of Christ in the Book of Mormon, Seven Visions: Images of Christ in the Doctrine and Covenants, and Seven Songs: Signs of Christ in the Old Testament, with one more book on the New Testament slated for publication next year.

Leslee Thorne-Murphy

Leslee Thorne-Murphy is a professor in the English Department and Associate Dean of the College of Humanities at BYU. Much of her research has centered on the relationship between Victorian social reform fiction and philanthropic innovation. Her most recent book project, Bazaar Literature: Charity, Advocacy, and Parody in Victorian Social Reform Fiction (Oxford 2022), reorients our understanding of Victorian social reform fiction by reading it in light of the copious amount of literature generated for charity bazaars. Her current research projects include compiling an anthology of nineteenth-century children's literature of faith, tracing the influence of religious communities in advocating for literacy, reinforcing ethnic identity, and negotiating scientific advances; and a study of the novel range of narrative prose fiction genres called into existence by Victorian periodical publication.

Steven Peck

Steven Peck, professor of Biology at BYU, is a visiting fellow with the Maxwell Institute. He is an evolutionary biologist, poet, and novelist. His Evolving Faith: Wanderings of. Mormon Biologist was published by the Maxwell Institute in 2015. Some of his many books include: A Short Stay in Hell, The Scholar of Moab, and his recent poetry collection, Experiments in the Fading Light.

Mark Ellison

Mark Ellison is an associate professor in the Department of Ancient Scripture and affiliate faculty of Ancient Near Eastern Studies and Global Women's Studies. His academic research explores early Christian texts, artifacts, visual art, and practices. His most recent book is The Visual Rhetoric of the Married Laity in Late Antiquity: Iconography, the Christianization of Marriage, and Alternatives to the Ascetic Ideal. Routledge Studies in the Early Christian World (London: Routledge, 2024). He co-edited the Maxwell Institute’s Ancient Christians: An Introduction for Latter-day Saints (Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship, 2022).