Emerson B. Powery (PhD, Duke University) is professor of biblical studies at Messiah University in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania. He is the author of Jesus Reads Scripture and Immersion Bible Studies: Mark and the coauthor of The Genesis of Liberation: Biblical Interpretation in the Antebellum Narratives of the Enslaved. He is also the coeditor of True to Our Native Land: An African American New Testament Commentary.