Me with Constantine

My name is Mark Giszczak. I am Professor of Sacred Scripture and Director of the Institute for Catholic Theological Formation at Saint Paul Seminary at the University of Saint Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota. Before that, I taught graduate classes on biblical topics at the Augustine Institute in Denver, CO from 2010-2025.

I am author of a few books. My most recent book is Perpetual Fire: Temple, Ritual, and Biblical Theology (Baylor University Press, 2026). My other books are Wisdom of Solomon in the Catholic Commentary on Sacred Scripture (Baker Academic, 2024); Suffering: What Every Catholic Should Know (Ignatius/Augustine Institute, 2024); Bible Translation and the Making of the ESV Catholic Edition (Augustine Institute, 2022); and Light on the Dark Passages of Scripture (OSV, 2015).

I love the Bible and want to help Catholics read it more and read it well. I enjoy reading, writing, and teaching.

I’ve been blogging here since 2006. This blog is a place I can share thoughts, insights and things that are likely to get missed when reading the Bible. Often I get inspired to write when I’m in between two things, that is, when I’m looking for one thing and find something I didn’t expect. Since it is called “Catholic Bible Student,” I write about things having to do with Catholicism, the Bible and the habit of study.

To give you a taste of how I blog, here are some of my more popular posts:
A Context for Jeremiah 29:11
Thomas a Kempis in Dei Verbum?
Council of Jamnia

I wrote my dissertation on the Song of Songs and I’ve written a few things that are out there online: introductions to the books of the Bible at CNA and some pieces for the Catholic Exchange.

You can contact me by commenting on a blog post or from my faculty page.

My degrees:

Ph. D., The Catholic University of America, Washington, DC (2013)
S.S.L., Pontifical Biblical Commission, Rome (2016)
S.S.B., Pontifical Biblical Commission, Rome (2014)
M. A., Augustine Institute, Denver, CO (2007)
B. Phil., Ave Maria College, Ypsilanti, MI (2005)