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Date
April 9 at 1:00 PM - 2:30 PM EDT
Location
Chesterton House’s Theological Society Presents:
A Conversation with Ellen Davis
April 9th, 2026 | 1:00pm
Scripture and Soil: How the Bible’s Vision Inspires Care for the Land
With the digital world at our fingertips and within a collegiate environment shaped by ideas and abstractions, the slow, seasonal labor of those who work the land can seem like a relic of days gone by. And yet, Scripture begins in a garden.
Throughout Scripture–particularly in the Old Testament–we encounter a persistent theme: the relationship between God, humans, and the land. Care for the land is both communal and sacred, central to what it means to be human. Perhaps then, the work of the humble farmer is far more sacred than we have imagined, those callused hands participating in humanity’s original vocation.
Over the course of her distinguished career as an Old Testament scholar at Duke, Ellen Davis has drawn profound connections between the Hebrew Bible and the worlds of agriculture, land care, and agrarian life. For over fifteen years, she has employed biblical interpretation as a lens for understanding what she calls, “the global crisis of agriculture.” While this lens does involve a careful reflection on the past, she argues that it can also provide invaluable instruction on a more whole future.
Join us in welcoming Ellen Davis to Theological Society to discuss how this compelling agrarian framework can shape both the intellectual and practical life of faith.
Ellen Davis, Amos Ragan Kearns Professor of Bible and Practical Theology, Duke Divinity School
Ellen F. Davis is Amos Ragan Kearns Distinguished Professor of Bible and Practical Theology at Duke Divinity School.
The author of twelve books and many articles, her research interests focus on how biblical interpretation bears on the life of faith communities and their response to urgent public issues, particularly the ecological crisis and interfaith relations. Scripture, Culture, and Agriculture: An Agrarian Reading of the Bible (Cambridge University Press, 2009), integrates biblical studies with a critique of industrial agriculture and food production. Biblical Prophecy: Perspectives for Christian Theology, Discipleship and Ministry (Westminster John Knox, 2014), explores the prophetic role and word across both Testaments of the Christian Bible. Her most recent books are Preaching the Luminous Word (Eerdmans, 2016), a collection of her sermons and essays, and Opening Israel’s Scriptures (Oxford, 2019), a comprehensive theological reading of the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament. Light within Light: Psalms and the Arts of Insight, co-written with Makoto Fujimura and Shai Held, is forthcoming from Baylor University Press in 2026.
A lay Episcopalian, she has long been active as a theological consultant within the Anglican Communion. Her current work explores the arts as modes of scriptural interpretation.
THEOLOGICAL SOCIETY
This society seeks to gather Cornell faculty and graduate students to discuss major themes in biblical and theological studies. Discussion aims to satisfy what Simone Weil once described as the basic need of the soul to consider “every sort of opinion, without the least restriction or reserve.” To this end, we invite dialogue that explores and even challenges historic orthodox beliefs as well as those ideas that reign in the contemporary church, academy, and culture.
Our dialogue is collegial and cordial without shying away from the hard questions scholars face in their life and work. Members of the group seek to nurture discussion by listening attentively to one another, guarding the length of our responses, and avoiding diversions to pet issues unrelated to the subject at hand. In short, we seek to embody a uniquely Christian form of intellectual hospitality that we can pass on to future generations.
