Wilda C. Gafney
Born	1966 (age 58–59)
Other names	Wil Gafney
Occupation(s)	Episcopal priest, professor
Academic background
Education	Earlham College(B.A.) Howard University(M.Div.) Duke University(Ph.D.)
Academic work
Discipline	Hebrew Bible
Institutions	Texas Christian University
Notable works	Daughters of Miriam: Women Prophets in Ancient Israel
Website	https://www.wilgafney.com/

Wilda C. Gafney, also known asWil Gafney, (born 1966) is an Americanbiblical scholar andEpiscopal priest who is the Right Rev. Sam B. Hulsey Professor ofHebrew Bible atBrite Divinity School ofTexas Christian University inFort Worth, Texas. She is specialist inwomanist biblical interpretation, and topics including gender and race.

Gafney's parents were both teachers, who divorced when she was young.^[1] She grew up attending anon-denominational church, was baptized in anAME Church, and attended a Catholic high school.^[1]

Gafney earned a BA fromEarlham College, aQuaker institution, in 1987, where she was one of only seven Black students on a campus of over 1000 students.^[2] She completed a Master's of Divinity fromHoward University, anhistorically black college, in 1997.^[3] She completed a PhD inHebrew Bible fromDuke University in 2006,^[3] where she was mentored byRoland E. Murphy.^[2] Her doctoral dissertation became her first book,Daughters of Miriam, a study of female prophets in ancient Israel.^[1]

Gafney is an Episcopal priest.^[4] She was aUS Army Reserve chaplain and a congregational pastor in theAME Zion Church, as well as a member of Germantown Jewish Center,^[5]Reconstructionist Jewish congregation in Philadelphia.^[6]

Gafney's first teaching position was at the Lutheran Seminaries in Philadelphia andGettysburg, beginning in 2003.^[1] In 2014, she was appointed associate professor of Hebrew Bible atBrite Divinity School atTexas Christian University.^[7] In 2018, she served on a committee that recommendedThe Book of Common Prayer for theEpiscopal Church in the United States be changed to gender neutral language.^[8]

Gafney's research focuses on intersections between the biblical text and contemporary issues, and she has taught courses called "The Bible and Black Lives Matter", "Exodus in African American Exegesis", and "The Bible in the Public Square".^[9] She is on the editorial team for theJournal of Biblical Literature.^[3] Her bookWomanist Midrash useswomanist andfeministhermeneutics tointerpret passages from the Hebrew Scriptures.^[10]

From 2012 to 2013, Gafney wrote a series of articles for theHuffington Post on topics includingsexual violence andcivil rights.^[11][12] In June 2018, in response toJeff Sessions quotingRomans 13 to defend PresidentDonald Trump'spolicy of separating children from their parents at the border, Gafney wrote an article forReligion Dispatches titled "If We Did Use the Bible to Run the Country...."^[13] In September 2020, Gafney participated in "Scholar Strike", an initiative inspired by thestrikes by athletes to call attention to racial injustice in the US. Gafney posted a video to the Scholar Strike YouTube page titled "White Supremacy in Biblical Interpretation."^[14] After many journalists called January 6, 2021, a "dark day", Gafney responded, "Today was not a 'dark day'. Today was a white day. One of the whitest days in American history."^[15]

In 2019, theUnion of Black Episcopalians presented Gafney with theAnna Julia Haywood Cooper Honor Award for her scholarship and advocacy on matters of race and gender.^[16] In 2020, theSociety of Biblical Literature named her one of the first two recipients of its Outstanding Mentor Award.^[17]

• Gafney, Wilda (2008).Daughters of Miriam: Women Prophets in Ancient Israel. Fortress Press.ISBN 9780800662585.^[18][19]
• DeYoung, Curtiss Paul; Gafney, Wilda C.; Guardiola-Saenz, Leticia; Tinker, George E.; Yamada, Frank M., eds. (2008).The Peoples' Bible. Fortress Press.ISBN 9780806656250.^[20]
• DeYoung, Curtiss Paul; Gafney, Wil; Guardiola-Saenez, Leticia A. (2010).The Peoples' Companion to the Bible. Fortress Press.ISBN 9780800697020.
• Gafney, Wilda C. (2017).Womanist Midrash: A Reintroduction to the Women of the Torah and the Throne. Presbyterian Publishing Corporation.ISBN 9780664239039.^[10][21][22]
• Gafney, Wilda C. N. (2017).Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah. Wisdom Commentary. Vol. 38. Liturgical Press.ISBN 9780814681879.
• Gafney, Wilda (2021).A Women's Lectionary for the Whole Church: Year A. Church Publishing.ISBN 9781640651623.

• Gafney, Wilda CM. (2006)."A Black Feminist Approach to Biblical Studies".Encounter.67 (4): 391.
• Gafney, Wilda (2010). "Reading the Hebrew Bible Responsibly". In Randall C. Bailey; Valerie Bridgeman; Samuel Murrell; Rodney S. Sadler Jr. (eds.).The Africana Bible: Reading Israel's Scriptures from Africa and the African Diaspora. Fortress Press. pp. 45–51.ISBN 9780800621254.
• Gafney, Wilda (2010). "Ruth". In Randall C. Bailey; Valerie Bridgeman; Samuel Murrell; Rodney S. Sadler Jr. (eds.).The Africana Bible: Reading Israel's Scriptures from Africa and the African Diaspora. Fortress Press. pp. 249–254.ISBN 9780800621254.
• Gafney, Wilda (July 2011)."A Prophet-Terrorist(a) and an Imperial Sympathizer: An Empire-Critical, Postcolonial Reading Of The No'adyah/Nechemyah Conflict".Black Theology.9 (2):161–176.doi:10.1558/blth.v9i2.161.S2CID 144851964.
• Gafney, Wilda (2013). "It Does Matter If You're Black or White, Too Black or Too White, but Mestizo is Just Right". In W. David Nelson; Rivka Ulmer (eds.).Re-Presenting Texts: Jewish and Black Biblical Interpretation. Gorgias Press.ISBN 9781611439243.
• Gafney, Wil (2015). "A Womanist Midrash on Zipporah". In Mitzi J. Smith (ed.).I Found God in Me: A Womanist Biblical Hermeneutics Reader. Fortress. pp. 131–157.
• Gafney, Wil (2016). "Womanist Midrash of Delilah: Don't Hate the Playa Hate the Game". In Gay L. Byron; Vanessa Lovelace (eds.).Womanist Interpretations of the Bible: Expanding the Discourse. Society of Biblical Literature.ISBN 9780884141853.
• Gafney, Wil (217)."A Reflection on the Black Lives Matter Movement and Its Impact on My Scholarship".Journal of Biblical Literature.136 (1):204–207.doi:10.15699/jbl.1361.2017.1363.JSTOR 10.15699/jbl.1361.2017.1363.

• Official website (The Rev. Wil Gafney, Ph.D.)
• Wilda C. Gafney onTwitter

• Living people
• 1966 births
• Earlham College alumni
• Howard University alumni
• Duke University alumni
• American Episcopal priests
• African Methodist Episcopal Church clergy
• Texas Christian University faculty
• 21st-century biblical scholars
• American biblical scholars
• African-American biblical scholars
• Female biblical scholars
• Feminist biblical scholars
• Womanist theologians
• 21st-century African-American academics
• 21st-century American academics

• Articles with hCards
• Use mdy dates from April 2021