Robert W. Yarbrough, PhD

Robert W. Yarbrough is chair of the New Testament Department and associate professor of New Testament at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Deerfield, Illinois. He has been at Trinity since July 1996. He is the editor of Trinity Journal.

Dr. Yarbrough came to Trinity from Covenant Theological Seminary in St. Louis, Missouri, where he was associate professor of New Testament for five years. Before that, he taught biblical and theological studies at Liberty University and New Testament studies at Wheaton College. Dr. Yarbrough also has been involved in educational initiatives in Egypt, Romania, Hungary, Sudan, and Korea.

Dr. Yarbrough received the Doctor of Philosophy degree in New Testament from the University of Aberdeen, Scotland, the Master of Arts degree in theological studies (New Testament) from Wheaton College Graduate School, and the Bachelor of Arts degree (majors: English and Religion) from Southwest Baptist College in Bolivar, Missouri. He also studied at the University of Tuebingen and the Albrecht-Bengel-Haus, Tuebingen, Germany.

Dr. Yarbrough's areas of scholarly interest include New Testament theology and backgrounds, Greek exegesis, and post-Enlightenment German New biblical criticism. A significant research focus has been the life and work of Swiss scholar Adolf Schlatter. He is a member of the Evangelical Theological Society (serving on the Board of referees), the Institute of Biblical Research (serving on the Editorial Board of Bulletin for Biblical Research), the Society of Biblical Literature, and Tyndale Fellowship.

Dr. Yarbrough is the author of I John 1-3 (2008) in the Baker Exegetical Commentary Series, which he coedits. Other books include The Kregal Pictorial Guide to the New Testament (2008) and The Salvation-Historical Fallacy? Reassessing the History of New Testament Theology (Deo, 2004). With Walter Elwell he authored the widely used textbook Engaging the New Testament (2nd ed. 2005). It has been translated into some half-dozen languages. He has also translated a number of works from German, including Gerhard Maier's Biblical Hermeneutics and (with Andreas Köstenberger) Adolf Schlatter's Do We Know Jesus?

Dr. Yarbrough and his wife, Bernie, a neo-natal registered nurse, have two grown sons. Dr. Yarbrough is an ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church in America. He serves as pastoral assistant at St. Mark Lutheran Church, Lindenhurst, Illinois. To relax he practices his former trade of tree cutting. He also coaches high school and American Legion baseball.