Dr. David Anthony (“Tony”) Basham is Assistant Professor of Biblical Theology and Assistant Director of Student & Program Development. From 2021–23, Tony was a Scholar-in-Residence with Ashland University’s Religion Department. As Assistant Director of Student & Program Development, Tony helps oversee the pre-seminary track for AU Religion majors and minors. After earning degrees from Emory University in Atlanta and Durham University in England, Tony completed his Ph.D. in Early Judaism & New Testament Studies at McGill University in Montreal, Quebec, where he was the recipient of numerous awards and scholarships, including the Travel Award for McGill Ph.D. Students/Postdocs to the University of Glasgow, Scotland. From 2019–2021, he was an Assistant Researcher for the Oxford Press-funded Contexticon Project based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, having authored and contributed to several articles on the history of usage for New Testament Greek terms. In 2022, Tony was a Dirk Smilde Scholar at the University of Groningen’s Qumran Institute in the Netherlands, where he and others led a research seminar and gave public lectures on the use of ritual studies to better understand those behind the Dead Sea Scrolls.
Tony’s journey has made him particularly aware of certain challenges that students can face, especially first-generation students of higher education. A desire to study the Bible academically propelled him to be the first in his family from Appalachia to complete high school. Several church communities were instrumental in this regard through their patience and generosity. Furthermore, he knows what it is like to hold ministry positions while completing one’s education. For these reasons, Tony is committed to theological education that benefits the local church.
Tony and his wife, Mallonee, live in Ashland and have three children. They are members of Emmanuel Anglican Church in Ashland, where Tony serves as music director and lay catechist.
Selected Publications:
From Equality to Difference: The Social Power of Conscience in Early Christianity. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, forthcoming.
Paul, the Temple, and Building a Metaphor. LNTS (Library of New Testament Studies) 710. London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2025.
“Turn the Cheek but Buy a Sword: Responding to Violence in Luke-Acts.” Religion and Violence in Western Traditions: Select Studies. Edited by André Gagné, Jennifer Guyver, and Gerbern S. Oegema. London: Routledge, 2022.
“John’s Christological Intensification of the Markan ‘Way’.” John, Jesus, and History, Volume 6: Jesus Remembered Among the Gospels. Edited by Paul N. Anderson. ECL (Early Christianity and Its Literature). Atlanta: SBL Press, forthcoming.
“‘A Quiet and Peaceable Life’: Conscience and the Role of Government in God’s Oikonomia.” The Church in an Age of Political Power: The 2025 New Testament Symposium of the Evangelical Foundation for Biblical Research. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, forthcoming.
“The Ransom Logion and the Cost of Discipleship in Mark.” Journal of Theological Interpretation 18.2 (2024): 223–43.
“The Role of Conscience in Maintaining Early Orthodoxy.” Australian Biblical Review 72 (2024): 79–93.
“Between Acts and Antioch: Discerning Paul on Gentiles and the Jerusalem Temple.” Biblical Theology Bulletin 55.2 (2025): 124–35.
“Jesus and the Temple: A Tale of Two Cleansings.” Encounter: A Journal of Theological Scholarship 85.3 (2025).
“God’s Temple in Corinth: Judaean Religion Among Gentiles and Paul’s Mission.” Bulletin for Biblical Research (forthcoming).
Review of Paul, Apostle of Grace, by Frank Thielman. Anglican Compass (2026): https://anglicancompass.com/book-review-paul-apostle-of-grace-by-frank-thielman/.
Review of Trust in Atonement: God, Creation, and Reconciliation, by Teresa Morgan. Catholic Biblical Quarterly (forthcoming).
Basham, David Anthony, and Joseph K Griffith II. Review of Jesus and the Powers: Christian Political Witness in an Age of Totalitarian Terror and Dysfunctional Democracies, by N. T. Wright and Michael F. Bird. Current (2024).
https://currentpub.com/2024/07/02/review-jesus-and-the-powers/.
https://currentpub.com/2024/07/02/uncut-version-jesus-and-the-powers-review/.
Review of Introduction to the New Testament: Reference Edition, by Carl R. Holladay. Arc—The Journal of the School of Religious Studies, McGill University 45 (2017): 203–4. https://www.baylorpress.com/9781481306188/introduction-to-the-new-testament/#tab-4.
