Michael Coogan

Semitic Museum, editor-in-chief of Oxford Biblical Studies Online,^[1] and professor emeritus of religious studies at Stonehill College

The New Jerome Biblical Commentary. Other projects that he conceived, edited, and collaborated on include The Oxford Companion to the Bible, The Illustrated Guide to World Religions, and The Oxford History of the Biblical World. One work is published by Twelve Books and titled God and Sex: What the Bible Really Says, published in 2010.^[6] In the later, Coogan aims to expand human freedom and justice while giving secondary instruction to Christians on the proper use of the Bible. He quotes St. Paul in regard to the failure to mention the female disciples in the list of faithful who saw the Risen Christ by noting that the empty tomb story in the Gospels might be a myth and inserted later.^[7] He states, "The text is not, except perhaps in the abstract, intrinsically authoritative: it derives its authority from the community." He favors "thinking of the Bible in a more nuanced way than simply as the literal word of God" and identifies the Bible as "one foundational text in American society" which along with our Constitution must be interpreted critically. The purpose of "God and Sex" is weaved jointly with the faithful and the secular in mind.^[8]