Helen Byler Buckwalter

Helen is a tenure-track Assistant Professor of Religion in the Department of Philosophy and Religion at James Madison University. A former Friedman Family Graduate Fellow, she earned her PhD in Religious Studies from UVA in 2025 with a focus in Judaism and Christianity in Antiquity. Her degrees include a BA in Liberal Arts from New Saint Andrews College, an MTS in Jewish Studies from Harvard Divinity School, and an MA in Religious Studies from UVA. Her broad research areas are Hebrew Bible and Rabbinic Judaism, more specifically reception history of the Hebrew Bible and the theological questions and concepts arising from early biblical interpretations. Her current research focuses on the rabbinic interpretation of the suffering of God in the book of Jeremiah and how lament poetry functions as theological discourse.