Thomas E. Boomershine

President, GoTell Communications

Thomas E. Boomershine (PhD, Union Theological Seminary) is an emeritus professor of New Testament and a United Methodist elder. He has been an activist as a biblical storyteller, educator (New York and United Theological Seminaries), author, and community organizer of the Network of Biblical Storytellers, International, and the Bible in Ancient and Modern Media research group in SBL. His detailed studies of the Gospels as ancient storytelling across the boundaries of the cultures of Israel and the Gentile Greco-Roman world are a foundation for peacemaking in the modern world. His research and advocacy have also helped to initiate the development of performance criticism as a methodology for biblical study. His books, Story Journey: An Introduction to the Gospel as Storytelling (1988) and The Messiah of Peace (2015), are resources for the reconception of the Gospels as stories of peacemaking and of biblical storytelling as a strategy for non-violent resistance to violence and warfare.

Publications

  • The Messiah of Peace: A Performance-Criticism Commentary on Mark’s Passion-Resurrection Narrative. Biblical Performance Criticism Series 11. Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2015.

  • Story Journey: An Invitation to the Gospel as Storytelling. Nashville: Abingdon, 1988.

  • “Audience Address and Purpose in the Performance of Mark.” In Mark as Story: Retrospect and Prospect, edited by Kelly R. Iverson and Christopher W. Skinner, 115–144. Atlanta: SBL, 2011

  • “The Medium and Message of John: Audience Address and Audience Identity in the Fourth Gospel.” In The Fourth Gospel in First-Century Media Culture, edited by Tom Thatcher and Anthony LeDonne, 92–120. London: T & T Clark, 2011.

  • “Audience Asides and the Audiences of Mark: The Difference Performance Makes.” In From Text to Performance: Narrative and Performance Criticisms in Dialogue and Debate, edited by Kelly R. Iverson, 80-96. Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2014.

  • “Teaching Mark as Performance Literature: Early Literate and Post-Literate Pedagogies,” in Communication, Pedagogy, and the Gospel of Mark, edited by Elizabeth Shively and Geert Van Oyen. Atlanta: SBL, 2016.