Paula Gooder is a writer and lecturer in biblical studies. She was born in Manchester, UK, where she grew up. She went to the University of Oxford where she did both her undergraduate degree and doctoral research (first at Worcester College then at the Queen's College). After that she taught for twelve years in two different colleges which train people for ministry (Ripon College Cuddesdon, Oxford, and the Queen's Foundation, Birmingham). Her research areas are 2 Corinthians and Paul's religious experiences; embodiment in Pauline theology and narrative methods of communicating theological ideas. Paula's passion is to communicate to best of biblical scholarship to an audience that would otherwise not read it. She seeks to bring the Bible alive again for Christians for whom it has become over-familiar, stale or just plain confusing.