John Barton (theologian)

John Barton (theologian)

The Revd Professor John Barton (born 1948) is the Oriel and Laing Professor of the Interpretation of Holy Scripture. He is a Fellow of Oriel College, Oxford, a Fellow of the British Academy and a foreign member of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters. He holds an Honorary Doctorate in Theology from the University of Bonn.

Professor Barton is a priest in the Church of England (ordained 1973). From 2000 to 2005 and from 2009 to 2010 he served on the Church’s General Synod representing the clergy of the University of Oxford. He was Canon Theologian of Winchester Cathedral from 1991 to 2004, sits on the Governing Body of Ripon College Cuddesdon and was elected President of Modern Church in 2011. He has been a Delegate of Oxford University Press since 2005. From 2010 to 2013 he holds a Leverhulme Major Research Fellowship for work on a project entitled Ethics in Ancient Israel. From 2004 to 2010 he was joint editor of the Journal of Theological Studies and is one of two Anglophone editors for the German monograph series Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft, published in Berlin.

Apart from biblical ethics, Professor Barton's research interests include the Old Testament prophets, the biblical canon, biblical interpretation and Old Testament theology.