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Trull 108
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Discover Dr. Aymer's sermons here
Education
BA, Harvard University, US History (1989)
MDiv, Union Theological Seminary, New Testament and Early Christianity (1996)
PhD, Union Theological Seminary, New Testament and Early Christianity (2004)
Doctor of Humane Letters, honoris causa, from Hood Theological Seminary (2013)
Bio
Margaret Aymer joined the faculty in 2015. She teaches core courses on the Introduction to the New Testament, Exegesis, and Greek and elective courses in numerous disciplines including African Americans and the Bible, and feminist and womanist biblical interpretation. She became Academic Dean in 2022—the first woman and the first person of color to hold that position. In 2024 her title changed to Vice-president for Academic Affairs and Dean of Faculty.
Active in the Society of Biblical Literature and American Academy of Religion, she has spoken as a guest lecturer at numerous academic and church conferences across the United States, including the 2013 MidWinter Lectures at Austin Seminary. There she was the Robert Jones Lecturer, offering a discourse on the “New Testament as Migrant Writings.” Aymer wrote Confessing the Beatitudes, the 2011 Horizons Bible Study (the annual Bible study resource for Presbyterian women), for which she won the Award of Excellence by the Associated Church Press.
Aymer has published four books: James: Diaspora Rhetorics of a Friend of God (Sheffield Publishing, 2014), Fortress Commentary on the Bible (with Gale A. Yee, Fortress Press, 2014); First Pure, then Peaceable: Frederick Douglass Reads James (T&T Clark, 2008), and Islanders, Islands and the Bible: Ruminations (Semeia Studies, 2015; with Jione Havea).
Prior to coming to Austin Seminary, Dr. Aymer taught at Interdenominational Theological Center in Atlanta, Georgia, since 2004. Aymer has served the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) broadly. She has served on the Presbyteries’ Cooperative Committee on Examinations since 2010, moderating the six persons who write the Bible Exegesis Ordination Examination for the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). She was a member of the Committee on Preparation of Ministry of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) from 2010-2011, training sessions (governing bodies) of local congregations on the ordination process and their responsibilities therein. Aymer was also a member of the General Assembly Task Force on Civil Unions and Marriage (2009-2010), and she served as a steering committee member for the Committee on Theological Education Consultation on Racism from 2004-2008.