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Ph.D .– Princeton Theological Seminary
M.Div. – Princeton Theological Seminary
B.A. – Grove City College
Dr. Leslie Virnelson teaches courses in Hebrew Bible and Old Testament. Before joining ULS, she taught as an adjunct at Princeton Theological Seminary, Princeton University, Mercer University, Union Theological Seminary, and Union Presbyterian Seminary. In 2024-2025, Dr. Virnelson was a Democracy Fellow at Interfaith America, where she worked with the Civic team to support communities and people of faith building bridges across religious and political divides, promoting trustworthy information about the political process, and engaging in interfaith civic projects for the common good. She also served as the interim director of the Center for Theology, Women, & Gender at PTS from 2020-2023, organizing events and curricula to educate public and scholarly audiences on the intersections of religion and gender. As a teacher, Dr. Virnelson seeks to foster students’ critical curiosity and give them tools and practice to cultivate their interpretive approach to scripture. She also encourages students to develop skills and paradigms for interfaith engagement.
Her forthcoming book explores how specialized roles for women are reflected in the texts of the Hebrew Bible, focusing on four: midwives, diviners, weavers, and sex workers. It investigates the practice of each role in the ancient world and its corresponding portrayal in biblical texts, incorporating linguistics, material culture, comparative literature, and ethnography. Dr Virnelson uses queer and feminist theories to situate the investigation of individual roles into a broader discussion of how ancient societies organized gendered labor and how ancient texts portray women’s roles. The value of women’s knowledge and labor is highly contested in the present day, so this work reflects on how modern debates over “women’s work” shape our understanding of ancient texts. This project contributes to a broader understanding of the nature of specialized work in ancient agrarian society, the social roles of women in the ancient world, and reflects on the use of feminist historiographical methods for the study of the Bible. Her next project will use feminist theory to consider broad paradigms of craft, labor, and skill in the Hebrew Bible, and she also writes about materiality and prophecy.
Outside of the classroom, Dr. Virnelson enjoys hiking, foraging, and fermentation as well as reading fiction and poetry.
Select Publications:
Books
Fruit of Her Hands: Women, Work, & Society in the Hebrew Bible, forthcoming. New York: Oxford University Press, 2025.
Articles
“Daubing, Materiality, and Prophecy in Ezekiel 13: 10–16.” CBQ 86.3 (2024): 469–84.
