Revd Prof Steve Walton, BSc, MA, PhD
Senior Research Fellow in New Testament
Revd Prof Steve Walton’s passion is to help others engage with the New Testament for themselves. He acts as a research supervisor for Trinity, and has supervised fifteen PhD students to successful completion across a wide range of areas in New Testament, and at the interfaces of New Testament and theology, practical theology, and Islamics. He has also examined forty doctoral theses covering a breadth of topics, including: Luke and Acts, the Gospels, Paul, Hebrews, the role of Bishops in the UK House of Lords, church growth, the interface of Islamics and New Testament studies, and hermeneutics. He welcomes enquiries from potential research students by email: steve.walton@trinitycollegebristol.ac.uk.
His major current research project is the Word Biblical Commentary on Acts. He has wide interests outside Acts, including the synoptic Gospels (especially Mark and Luke), New Testament theology, narrative approaches to the New Testament, the appropriation of the Old Testament in the New Testament, Greek language and linguistics, New Testament textual criticism, and Paul (especially, but not exclusively, 1 and 2 Thessalonians, Philippians, and Galatians), and the interfaces between New Testament and other theological disciplines. He blogs about New Testament Studies at Acts and More (http://stevewalton.info)
Steve is Secretary of the British New Testament Society, and has served on the steering committees of the Society of Biblical Literature Book of Acts and Biblical Lexicography sections. He also served on the Editorial Board of the Library of New Testament Studies series (Bloomsbury T & T Clark). He is a member of the SNTS (the premier international New Testament society), the Center of Theological Inquiry (Princeton, NJ), the Society of Biblical Literature, the Tyndale Fellowship for Biblical and Theological Research, and the Institute for Biblical Research.
Steve is ordained priest/presbyter in the Church of England, and has served on a church staff, in student ministry, advised people on God’s call with the Church Pastoral Aid Society, was a househusband, a bishop’s chaplain, and has taught at Bedford College, St John’s College, Nottingham, London School of Theology, and St Mary’s University, Twickenham—the latter two as Professor. He is married to Ali, who is vicar of All Saints, Isleworth in West London, and they live with their Border Terrier, Flora. Steve is a retired international volleyball referee and trainer of other referees, and was an Olympic torchbearer in 2012.
Select publications
(View a full CV of Prof Walton’s work here)
Authored books
[with David Wenham] Exploring the New Testament, vol. 1: The Gospels and Acts (London: SPCK/Downers Grove, IL: IVP, 2001; second [revised and updated] edition, 2011; Korean translation: Seoul: Scripture Union, 2007).
Leadership and Lifestyle: The Portrait of Paul in the Miletus Speech and 1 Thessalonians (SNTS Monograph Series 108; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000).
Edited books
Le corpus Lucanian (Luc-Actes) et l’historigraphie ancienne: quels rapports?, edited by Simon Butticaz, Luc Devilliers, James M. Morgan and Steve Walton (Théologie biblique; Berlin: LIT Verlag, 2019).
Poverty in the Early Church and Today–A Conversation with Hannah Swithinbank of Tearfund (Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2019). This book is freely available online: https://tinyurl.com/poverty-book.
The Urban World and the First Christians, edited by Steve Walton, Paul R. Trebilco and David W. J. Gill (Grand Rapids/Cambridge: Eerdmans, 2017).
Reading Acts in the Discourses of Masculinity and Politics, edited by Eric D Barreto, Matthew L. Skinner and Steve Walton (Library of NT Studies 559; London: Bloomsbury T. & T. Clark, 2016).
Reading Acts Today, edited by Steve Walton, Thomas E. Phillips, Lloyd K. Pietersen and F. Scott Spencer (Library of NT Studies 427; London: T. & T. Clark, 2011).
Recent contributions to books
‘Acts as Biblical History?’ in Le corpus Lucanien (Luc-Actes) et l’historographie ancienne: quels rapports?, ed. Simon Butticaz, Luc Devilliers, James M. Morgan and Steve Walton (Théologie biblique; Berlin: LIT Verlag, 2019) 51-68.
‘Why Silence? Reflections on Paul and Jesus Silencing Demonised People in Luke-Acts’ in Healing and Exorcism in Second Temple Judaism and Early Christianity (Mohr Siebeck, 2019), edited by Mikael Tellbe and Tommy Wasserman.
‘Deciding about Deciding’ in Engaging Ethically in a Strange New World, edited by Michael Brautigam and Gillian Asquith (Australian College of Theology Monograph Series, Wipf & Stock, 2019) 27-49.
‘Turning Anthropology Right Side Up: Seeing Human Life and Existence Lukewise’ in Anthropology and New Testament Theology, edited by Jason S. Maston and Benjamin E. Reynolds (Library of NT Studies 529; London: Bloomsbury T. & T. Clark, 2018) 99-119.
‘Identity and Christology: The Ascended Jesus in the Book of Acts’ in The Earliest Perceptions of Jesus in Context: Essays in Honour of John Nolland, edited by Aaron White, David Wenham and Craig Evans (Library of NT Studies 566; London: Bloomsbury T. & T. Clark, forthcoming 2018) 130-48.
‘Heavenly Citizenship and Earthly Authorities: Philippians 1:27; 3:20 in Dialogue with Acts 16:11-40’ in The Urban World and the First Christians, edited by Steve Walton, Paul R. Trebilco and David W. J. Gill (Grand Rapids/Cambridge: Eerdmans, 2017) 236-52.
‘Jesus’s Ascension through Old Testament Narrative Traditions’ in Ascent into Heaven in Luke-Acts: New Explorations of Luke’s Narrative Hinge, edited by David Pao and David Bryan (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2016) 29-39.
‘Jesus, Present and/or Absent? The Presence and Presentation of Jesus as a Character in the Book of Acts’ in Characters and Characterization in Luke-Acts, edited by Frank E. Dicken and Julia A. Snyder (Library of NT Studies 548; London: Bloomsbury T. & T. Clark, 2016) 123–40.
‘Evil in Ephesus: Acts 19:8–40’ in Evil in Second Temple Judaism and Early Christianity, edited by Chris Keith and Loren Stuckenbruck (WUNT II/417; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2016) 224–34.
‘Codex Sinaiticus and its Importance for Contemporary Christianity’ in Codex Sinaiticus: New Perspectives on the Ancient Biblical Manuscript, edited by Scot McKendrick, David Parker, Amy Myshrall and Cillian O’Hogan (London: British Library, 2015) 293–302.
‘Bible Translation’ and ‘Learning Biblical Languages’ in Encyclopaedia of Christian Education, edited by George Thomas Kurian and Mark. A Lamport (3 vols; Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2015) 1:139–40; 2:719–21.
Recent journal articles
‘Thinking it Through: Researching and Writing a Conference Paper’, ReflectED: St Mary’s Journal of Education 7 (2016): 3–5.
‘What are the Gospels? Richard Burridge’s Impact on Scholarly Understanding of the Genre of the Gospels’, Currents in Biblical Research 14 (2015): 81–93.
‘Calling the Church Names: Learning about Christian Identity from Acts’, Perspectives in Religious Studies 41 (2014): 223–41.
‘What is Progress in New Testament Studies?’, Expository Times 124 (2013): 209–26 [French translation: ‘Qu’entend-on par progrès dans l’étude du Nouveau Testament?’, Hokhma 108 (2015): 3–31].
Recent transfer of knowledge to a wider audience
‘Acts 1:6-8: Recognising Tense and Mood—and Believing Jesus’ Promise’ and ‘Acts 2:46: Sharing Means in Public and Private—Watch Those Participles!’ in Devotions on the Greek New Testament, vol. 2, edited by Paul N. Jackson (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2017) 52‑57.
Bible reading notes on Luke in Guidelines (Bible Reading Fellowship), Sep-Dec 2018, Jan-Apr, May-Aug, and Sep-Dec 2019.
Bible reading notes on Acts in Guidelines (Bible Reading Fellowship), Jan–Apr, May–Aug, and Sep–Dec 2015.
‘A Spirituality of Acts’ in Christian Reflection (Baylor University), Spring 2015, 11–18; available online: https://www.baylor.edu/content/services/document.php/239234.pdf.
Latest blog posts
Open Evening for Part-Time Study
Senior Research Fellow in New Testament Senior Research Fellow in New Testament Revd Prof Steve Walton’s passion is to help others engage with the New Testament for themselves. He acts as a research supervisor for Trinity, and has supervised fifteen PhD students to successful completion across a wide range of areas in New Testament, and […]
New Vice Principal for Formation
Senior Research Fellow in New Testament Senior Research Fellow in New Testament Revd Prof Steve Walton’s passion is to help others engage with the New Testament for themselves. He acts as a research supervisor for Trinity, and has supervised fifteen PhD students to successful completion across a wide range of areas in New Testament, and […]
Academic Awards celebration
Senior Research Fellow in New Testament Senior Research Fellow in New Testament Revd Prof Steve Walton’s passion is to help others engage with the New Testament for themselves. He acts as a research supervisor for Trinity, and has supervised fifteen PhD students to successful completion across a wide range of areas in New Testament, and […]
Jubilee Scholarship launched
Senior Research Fellow in New Testament Senior Research Fellow in New Testament Revd Prof Steve Walton’s passion is to help others engage with the New Testament for themselves. He acts as a research supervisor for Trinity, and has supervised fifteen PhD students to successful completion across a wide range of areas in New Testament, and […]