Tennessee Wesleyan University will host Dr. Ryan Bonfiglio as this year’s Heritage Day speaker.

     Bonfiglio serves at Emory’s Candler School of Theology as an Associate Professor in the Practice of Old Testament. He also serves as the Executive Director of The Candler Foundry, an initiative that seeks to make the best of theological learning accessible to the broader public and beyond Candler’s formal degree programs.

     He holds degrees from Princeton University (BA Chemistry), Princeton Theological Seminary (MDiv), and Emory University (PhD, Old Testament). His research and teaching interests include biblical metaphors, the Ten Commandments, the Bible and poverty, ancient Near Eastern iconography, and various topics in Old Testament theology.

     He is the author of Reading Images, Seeing Texts: Towards a Visual Hermeneutics for Biblical Studies and is currently working on a book that explores the biblical theology of Sabbath.

     Bonfiglio was born and raised in Philadelphia and still suffers from a lifelong love of Philly sports team. 

    Bonfiglio will speak on Tuesday, February 17, 2026, at 11:00 a.m. in Townsend Auditorium. Bonfiglio’s topic will be “Made in the Image of Three Mile-an-Hour God.”

    The event is free and open to the public.