Phyllis Trible is an internationally known lecturer and biblical scholar. She is a leading authority on what is now known as feminist hermeneutics, as well as literary and rhetorical modes of biblical criticism. Trible’s first two books, God and the Rhetoric of Sexuality (1978) and Texts of Terror: Literary-Feminist Readings of Biblical Narratives (1984) are considered groundbreaking works in feminist biblical scholarship. Trible was born in Richmond, Virginia on October 25, 1932. In 1950, she graduated from Thomas Jefferson High School and went on to earn her Bachelor of Arts degree from Meredith College in Raleigh, North Carolina in 1954, graduating magna cum laude. Following the advice of Ralph MacLain – a professor at Meredith College - Trible pursued graduate theological studies at the Union Theological Seminary in New York City. After two years in the B.D. (Bachelor of Divinity) program, she transferred to the Ph.D. program offered jointly by UTS and Columbia University. With her major in the Old Testament, Trible completed the Ph.D. program in 1963, under the direction of James Muilenburg, Davenport Professor of Hebrew Literature and Languages at Union. Trible’s teaching career began with a three-year tenure at The Master's School in Dobbs Ferry, New York, from 1960 to 1963, undertaken during the same years she was completing her dissertation at Union on the Book of Jonah. In 1963, Trible began her formal teaching career at Wake Forest University (1963-1971) in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, first as Assistant then as Associate Professor of Religion. In 1971, she moved to Newton-Centre, Massachusetts to teach at Andover Newton Theological School (1971-1979). There, she held the posts of Associate Professor and Professor of Old Testament. In 1975, she was appointed Hitchcock Professor of Hebrew Language and Literature (1975-1979). In 1979, she was appointed Professor of Old Testament at Union Theological Seminary in New York City, the fourth woman to hold a full professorship at that seminary. In 1981, Trible became the first woman to be named Baldwin Professor of Sacred Literature. She retired from Union in 1998 and was thereafter Baldwin Professor Emerita of Sacred Literature. In 1994, she would also serve as President of the Society of Biblical Literature. During this period of her career, Trible gave numerous lectures, speeches, and sermons as close by as Riverside Church and far afield as New Zealand and Japan. Throughout her academic and recreational travels, Trible came into contact with academic work, religious communities, and cultural contexts that were critical in sculpting her scholarly sensibilities as well as her personal relationship to spirituality, gender identity, and academia.