Dr Meredith Warren

School of English

Senior Lecturer in Biblical and Religious Studies, Director of the Sheffield Centre for Interdisciplinary Studies.

Meredith Warren - 2025 Staff Profile
Profile picture of Meredith Warren - 2025 Staff Profile
m.j.warren@sheffield.ac.uk
+44 114 222 0502
Jessop West

Full contact details

Dr Meredith Warren
School of English
Jessop West
1 Upper Hanover Street
Sheffield
S3 7RA
Profile

I am Senior Lecturer in Biblical and Religious Studies and the Director of the Sheffield Institute for Interdisciplinary Studies. I am a , originally from Canada; I moved to Sheffield in 2015. Currently my research areas include gender; the senses; anti-Semitism; and apocalyptic literature.

Research interests

My primary research interests include the use of food and the sense of taste in biblical texts, especially in the New Testament and non-canonical literature. I have published on eating flesh and drinking blood in the Gospel of John, the use of wine libations in the Book of Revelation, and the ingesting of honeycomb in Joseph and Aseneth. I just co-authored the first textbook dedicated to , which was published by Routledge in 2022.

My most recent monograph, Food and Transformation in Ancient Mediterranean Literature, identifies and defines a new genre in ancient texts that I term hierophagy, a specific type of transformational eating where other-worldly things are consumed and which cause the eater to become associated with the heavenly realm. My first book, My Flesh Is Meat Indeed: A Nonsacramental Reading of John 6:51–58, examined Jesus’ commandment to consume his flesh and blood in the context of fictional accounts of human sacrifice.

My current research investigates the use of ‘taste’ in metaphors for death in ancient Jewish, Christian, and other literature.

I am the Director of the Sheffield Centre for Interdisciplinary Biblical Studies; I also edit the SCIBS book series published with Sheffield Phoenix Press, and am co-editor in chief of the .

Publications

Books

  • Parks S, Sheinfeld S & Warren MJC (2021) Jewish and Christian women in the Ancient Mediterranean. Abingdon: Routledge.
  • Warren MJ (2019) Food and transformation in ancient Mediterranean literature. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature.
  • Warren MJC (2015) My Flesh Is Meat Indeed: A Nonsacramental Reading of John 6:51-58. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press.

Edited books

  • Rollens SE, Vanden Eykel EM & Warren MJC (Eds.) (2025) Introduction. Wm Eerdmans Publishing.
  • Rollens SE, Vanden Eykel EM & Warren MJC (Eds.) (2025) Judeophobia and the New Testament: Texts and Contexts. Eerdmans Publishing Co.
  • Warren MJC, Sheinfeld S & Naylor Davis C (Eds.) (2024) 'Good Omens' and the Bible. Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press.
  • Warren M, Kobel E & Brant J-A (Eds.) (2023) The Ties that Bind: Negotiating Relationships in Early Jewish and Christian Texts, Contexts, and Reception History. London: T&T Clark.

Journal articles

  • Warren M (2023) . The Journal of Religion and Film, 27(1).
  • Smith DA, Novakovic L, Clatworthy J, Brierley M, Guidero K, Chaplin D, Grenholm C, Gregory A, Becker E-M, North W , Jack A et al (2023) . Modern Believing, 64(2), 163-226.
  • Warren M (2023) . Journal for Ancient Judaism, 14(1), 1-20.
  • Warren MJC (2022) . Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus: Jesus in History, Culture and Media, 20(3), 179-191.
  • Warren M (2022) Five husbands: slut-shaming the Samaritan woman. Bible and Critical Theory, 17(2), 51-70.
  • Rollens S, Vanden Eykel E & Warren M (2020) . Journal for Interdisciplinary Biblical Studies, 2(1), 81-106.
  • Warren MJ (2018) . Religions, 9(12).
  • Warren MJ (2017) . Journal for the Study of the New Testament, 40(1), 101-119.
  • Warren MJ (2016) . Teaching Theology & Religion, 19(3), 309-319.
  • Warren MJC (2015) . Studies in Religion/Sciences Religieuses , 44(3), 320-333.

Book chapters

  • Warren M (2025) Indigenous apocalypticism in the time of the seventh fire In Murphy KJ & Jeffcoat Schedtler J (Ed.), Apocalypses in Contexts: Apocalyptic Currents through History [2nd Edition] (pp. 269-296). Fortress Press
  • Warren M (2024) Flesh made word: transculturality, memory, and history in the gospel of John In Anderson PN, Thatcher T & Just, SJ F (Ed.), John, Jesus, and History Vol 4: Jesus Remembered in the Johannine Situation Atlanta, GA: Society of Biblical Literature.
  • Warren MJC (2024) Rape jokes, sexual violence and empire in Revelation and This Is the End In Claassens JM, Graybill R & Maier CM (Ed.), Narrating rape: shifting perspectives in biblical literature and popular culture SCM Press
  • Sheinfeld S & Warren MJC (2023) Wine, Dine, and Bind: Sacrificial Food and Community Formation in Asia Minor, TIES THAT BIND (pp. 119-129).
  • Warren MJC (2022) Five husbands: slut-shaming the Samaritan Woman In Cobb C & Vanden Eykel E (Ed.), Sex, Violence and Early Christian Texts Lexington Books
  • Warren MJ (2020) In Koltun-Fromm N & Kessler G (Ed.), A Companion to Late Ancient Jews and Judaism: Third Century BCE To Seventh Century CE (pp. 405-424). Wiley-Blackwell
  • Warren MJ (2018) ‘When the Christ appears, will he do more signs than this man has done?’ (John 7:31): Signs and the Messiah in the Gospel of John In Reynolds B & Boccaccini G (Ed.), Reading the Gospel of John's Christology as a Form of Jewish Messianism: Royal, Prophetic, and Divine Messiahs (pp. 229-247). Brill
  • Warren MJ (2017) Human and divine justice in the testament of Abraham In DiTommaso L, Henze M & Adler W (Ed.), The Embroidered Bible: Studies in Biblical Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha in Honour of Michael E. Stone (pp. 928-940). Leiden: Brill.
  • Warren MJC (2017) , Taste and the Ancient Senses (pp. 104-119).
  • Warren MJC (2017) Seven Seals, Seven Trumpets, Seven Bowls, End of Days an Encyclopedia of the Apocalypse in World Religions (pp. 321-325).
  • Warren MJ (2014) A Robe Like Lightning: Clothing Changes and Identification in Joseph and Aseneth In Upson-Saia K, Daniel-Hughes C & Batten AJ (Ed.), Dressing Judeans and Christians in Antiquity (pp. 137-153). Farnham, UK: Ashgate Publishing, Ltd..
  • Warren M () Bodily Transformation In Maier H, Wendt H & Urciuoli ER (Ed.), The Oxford Handbook to the New Testament and the Roman Empire Oxford University Press
  • Warren M () Bodily Transformation In Wendt H, Urciuoli ER & Maier H (Ed.), The Oxford Handbook to the New Testament and the Roman Empire
  • Warren MJ () Equal to God: Jesus’ Crucifixion and Sacrificial Scheintod In Tappenden F & Daniel-Hughes C (Ed.), Coming Back to Life: The Permeability of Past and Present, Mortality and Immortality, Death and Life in the Ancient Mediterranean (pp. 435-455). McGill University Library and Archives

Digital content

  • Warren MJ & Sheinfeld S (2015) Students Think Better with Thinking Pieces: Why You Should Consider Using Low-Stakes Writing Assignments in Your Class. Retrieved from
Research group

I welcome PhD applicants who are interested in researching embodiment in biblical and/or ancient texts; any aspect of early Judaism and/or early Christianity; the Book of Revelation; the Gospel of John; sensory theory; the Bible and science fiction; or other projects engaging with biblical or classical literature in its ancient or contemporary contexts.

Teaching activities

Undergraduate:

  • LIT113 Foundations in Literary Study: Biblical and Classical Sources in English
  • LIT272 Good Books: Intertextual Approaches to Literature and the Bible
  • EGH31007: The End of the World

MA:

  • The Sacred and the Sexual: Gender, Sex, and the Bible