Makayla Bezzant

A headshot photo of Makayla Bezzant, a a doctoral student in the Judaism and Christianity in Antiquity track in the Theology Department at Fordham University. Makayla is wearing a white shirt.

 

Education

B.A. Ancient Near Eastern Studies (Greek New Testament), Minor: Ballroom Dance - Brigham Young University, 2019
M.A.R. New Testament - Yale Divinity School, 2023

Biography

Makayla is a third-year doctoral student in Judaism and Christianity in Antiquity. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Ancient Near Eastern Studies from Brigham Young University, where she worked as an assistant on BYU’s Egypt Excavation Project. She was also awarded the Global Opportunity Scholarship in 2018, allowing her to work abroad on Dr. Jodi Magness’ (UNC-Chapel Hill) excavation in Huqoq, Israel. After her bachelor’s, she attended Yale Divinity School, earning a Master of Arts in Religion in New Testament. Here, she also attained funding from ARCHAIA (Yale) to travel through Turkey and Greece through archaeological sites and museums of antiquity researching ancient latrines.

Her current research brings feminist biblical interpretation into conversation with sensory, embodiment, and ritual studies to examine how women's sensory experiences in the Gospels and Acts illuminate questions of discipleship and religious experience in the New Testament. She is also broadly interested in Greco-Roman contexts of New Testament and early Christian texts, New Testament reception history, material culture, and archaeology.