Contributing Faculty

Herbert Marbury

Faculty Lead

Herbert R. Marbury is an Associate Professor of Hebrew Bible at Vanderbilt University. He researches the Bible’s textuality—that is how biblical texts come to meaning both in the ancient world and in the contemporary worlds of modern U.S. communities. Although he turns to cultural studies, he grounds his work in both historical-critical and hermeneutical methods.

Dr. Marbury received his B.A. from Emory, earned his M.Div. from the Interdenominational Theological Center, earned his M.A. and Ph.D. from Vanderbilt University,

Since 2012 Marbury has served as co-chair of the African American Biblical Hermeneutics section of the Society of Biblical Literature. There, he raises the question of meaning for African American communities. In Pillars of Cloud and Fire: The Politics of Exodus in African American Biblical Interpretation (New York University Press, 2015), he uses cultural studies as a mode of inquiry and builds on the method developed in Imperial Dominion. Pillars of Cloud and Fire recovers trajectories of counter-history in examples of African American biblical interpretation heretofore unexamined by biblical scholars.

Prior to his tenure at VDS, Marbury served as pastor of Old National United Methodist Church in Atlanta, GA and as University Chaplain at Clark Atlanta University where, in 2004, he was named the Chaplain of the Year by the United Methodist Higher Education Foundation. He has taught at American Baptist College and has served as a mentor in the Doctor of Ministry program at United Theological Seminary in Dayton, Ohio for the program group "The Black Church and Social and Civic Empowerment.”

Phillis Isabella Sheppard

Phillis Isabella Sheppard is E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter Associate Professor of Religion, Psychology, and Culture.

Dr. Sheppard earned a B.A. in Political Science from Edinboro University of Pennsylvania, an M.A. in Theology from Colgate Rochester Divinity School, and a Ph.D. in Theolgoy, Ethics, and the Human Sciences,from Chicago Theological Seminary.

Her research engages the intersection where the social and the intrapsychic meet. In her book Self, Culture and Others in Womanist Practical Theology (Palgrave Macmillan, 2011) she argued for a psychoanalytic dimension to womanist approaches to practical theology.  The book was the focus of a panel discussion at the American Academy of Religion’s Womanist Approaches to Religion and Society session.

As a practical theologian, Dr. Sheppard is recognized for her contributions to practical theology, psychology and religion, womanist methodology, cultural studies, pastoral theology, and spiritual practices. She serves on the steering or executive committees of several national guilds: Psychology, Culture and Religion and the Womanist Approaches to the Study of Religion and Society both groups of the American Academy of Religion; the Association of Practical Theology; and the Theological Education committee of the American Academy of Religion.