Marvin R. Wilson is an American evangelical Biblical scholar, and was Harold J. Ockenga Professor of Biblical and Theological Studies at Gordon College in Wenham, Massachusetts until his 2018 retirement.
Wilson graduated from Wheaton College (A.B., cum laude), Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary (M.Div., summa cum laude) and Brandeis University (M.A., Ph.D.).
Wilson taught at Barrington College for eight years before becoming a professor at Gordon in 1971, a position he held until his retirement in 2018. He taught Old Testament, Hebrew, Jewish history and culture, and modern Judaism. He also served as an Old Testament translator and editor of the New International Version Bible as well as contributing notes to two of the Old Testament books in the NIV Study Bible. Apart from writing over 200 articles or reviews Wilson is also a frequent speaker in synagogues, conferences, and on TV and radio. One of Wilson’s most notable contributions is his textbook Our Father Abraham: Jewish Roots of the Christian Faith which is in its 29th printing. Foreign translations include French, Italian, Czech, Chinese, Japanese and Korean. Wilson has also co-edited 3 books on Jewish-Christian relations: Evangelicals and Jews in Conversation, Evangelicals and Jews in an Age of Pluralism, and A Time to Speak: The Evangelical-Jewish Encounter. He also served as primary scholar for the award winning, two-hour national public TV documentary Jews & Christians: A Journey of Faith.
Wilson joined Edwin Yamauchi (Professor of History emeritus, Miami University) as co-editor and author of the four volume reference work Dictionary of Daily Life in Biblical and Post-biblical Antiquity (Hendrickson Publishers, 2014–16).
A collection of twenty essays written by Christian and Jewish scholars was presented as a surprise to Wilson at a recent Gordon College commencement. This Festschrift is titled, Perspectives on Our Father Abraham in Honor of Marvin R. Wilson (ed. Steven A. Hunt, Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.).
