Dr Emily Gathergood

Associate Supervisor
Email: eg748@cam.ac.uk

Emily is an Associate Supervisor at Westcott House, with specialised expertise in:

• New Testament bodies (human, divine, animal)
• Reading the New Testament with interdisciplinary Body Studies, Health Studies, and Disability Studies

Emily is passionate about the pursuit of biblical knowledge for the resourcement of the Church’s worship and ministry. She enjoys guiding students through the creative intellectual process of conducting historical, literary, and theological research on the scriptures that are foundational for Christianity. Her supervision practice is oriented towards attentive and inspirational direction which empowers students to develop their own scholarly voice.

Emily’s research focus is on early Christian conceptualisations of the body, healthcare, and disability. Her Manfred Lautenschlaeger Award-winning book, The Midwifery of God, forthcoming with Oxford University Press, explores the intersections of divinity, maternity, and pain in the New Testament and other early Christian writings.

She has also published articles, book chapters, reviews, and media outputs on adjacent body-centred topics such as divine incarnation in the Gospels, circumcision in the Pauline corpus, and sexual violence in contemporary Christianity.

Emily is a steering committee member of the Society of Biblical Literature’s Healthcare and Disability in the Ancient World research group, which drives the global research agenda in biblical body studies. Emily also collaborates interdisciplinarily with body researchers in the international Religion, Medicine, Disability, Health, and Healing in Late Antiquity working group. She serves on the editorial board of the Journal for the Study of the New Testament, as well as peer-reviewing for the Journal of the American Academy of Religion, the Journal of Interdisciplinary Biblical Studies, and The Expository Times. Emily simultaneously holds a research fellowship at the University of Nottingham, where she earned postgraduate degrees in Biblical Studies and Theology.

Beyond academia, Emily’s interests include choral singing and gardening.

Publications

The Midwifery of God: Divinity and Maternity in Early Jewish and Christian Writings (Oxford University Press, forthcoming)

‘Ephesians,’ in Judeophobia and the New Testament: Texts and Contexts, eds. Eric Vanden Eykel, Sarah Rollens & Meredith Warren (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2025)

‘Born of a Woman,’ Expository Times 135/3 (2023)

‘Ascension of Isaiah,’ e-clavis: Christian Apocrypha research bibliography for the North American Society for the Study of Christian Apocryphal Literature (2023)

‘Special Delivery: The Hidden Birth of Jesus in the Ascension of Isaiah 11,’ Ancient Jew Review (2021)

‘Nurture Habits of Goodness,’ The Church Times (2021)

‘Papyrus 32 (Titus) as a Multi-text Codex: A New Reconstruction,’ New Testament Studies 59 (2013): 588–606

‘Bibledex,’ educational mini-films on the Bible, on location in Israel and Palestine (University of Nottingham, 2010)