Carl R. Holladay

Dr. Carl R. Holladay taught at Candler and in Emory's Graduate Division of Religion from 1980 to 2019. He is a popular lecturer at colleges and universities around the world.

Holladay’s research joins classical academic scholarship and professional application, focusing on Luke-Acts, Hellenistic Judaism (Judaism in the Greco-Roman world), and Christology. His scholarly contributions have focused on the ways in which the culture of the Hellenistic world shaped Jewish traditions of the Second Temple period, and through them the development of early Christianity. He has illuminated the ways in which Jewish authors of the Hellenistic period expressed and defended their tradition in literary and conceptual forms current in the Hellenistic environment. His edition of and commentary on the Greek fragments of Hellenistic Jewish authors is a foundational work for study of Jewish literature of the period, combining philological expertise and a sophisticated grasp of the literature and philosophy of the period.

He is the sole author of nine books, including A Critical Introduction to the New Testament: Interpreting the Message and Meaning of Jesus Christ (Abingdon, 2005), which offers historical context as well as an orientation to religious, theological and ethical issues surrounding Jesus’ message, and is used extensively by seminaries and ministers. Holladay also co-authored or co-edited four books, including Biblical Exegesis: A Beginner's Handbook (Westminster John Knox, 1^st ed., 1982), a widely used introductory text on exegetical methods, theory and practice, now in its third edition. His recent publications include Acts: A Commentary, New Testament Library (Westminster John Knox, 2016), and Introduction to the New Testament: Reference Edition (Baylor, 2017), which treats the historical, literary, and theological dimensions of these early Christian writings.

He has received several prestigious fellowships and professional honors, including a Fulbright Senior Scholar Award, a Luce Fellowship, and a Festschrift titled Scripture and Traditions: Essays on Early Judaism and Christianity in Honor of Carl R. Holladay (Brill, 2008). Holladay is a member of the Society for New Testament Studies and The Society of Biblical Literature. He was elected in 2017 to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, one of the nation's oldest and most prestigious honorary societies and a leading center for independent policy research. Holladay currently serves on the Eastern European Liaison Committee, an initiative of the Society for New Testament Studies that has fostered dialogue between Orthodox and non-Orthodox biblical scholars since the 1990s. He is also a member of the editorial board of two international scholarly journals: Novum Testamentum and Sacra Scripta. He also serves on the board of The Christian Scholarship Foundation, Inc., a Georgia-based charitable organization that he helped establish in 1983.