Gregory Sterling

Gregory E. Sterling is an American religious scholar, academic and researcher. He is the Reverend Henry L. Slack Dean and Lillian Claus Professor of New Testament at Yale Divinity School. He is a former dean of the Graduate School of University of Notre Dame, where he also served on the faculty for 23 years.

Sterling focuses on Hellenistic Judaism and has published over 100 scholarly papers on, among other subjects, the writings of Philo of Alexandria, Josephus, and Luke–Acts. He has focused on the ways Second Temple Jews and early Christians interacted with one another and with the Greco-Roman world. Sterling is the author of Historiography and Self-Definition: Josephos, Luke-Acts, and Apologetic Historiography, Armenian Paradigms and Coptic Paradigms: A Summary of Sahidic Coptic Morphology and the editor or co-editor of five other books.

Sterling is the General Editor of Philo of Alexandria Commentary Series by E. J. Brill and Co-Editor of the Studia Philonica Annual. He is a minister in the Churches of Christ.

On June 16, 2026, the Office of the Provost of Yale University announced that Sterling would conclude his term as dean at the end of the 2026-2027 academic year.

Education Sterling received his bachelor's degree in Christianity and history in 1978 and completed post-baccalaureate studies in classics in the following year at Houston Baptist University. He then received his master's degree in religion from Pepperdine University in 1980 and his master's degree in classics from the University of California in 1982. In 1990, he completed his Ph.D. in biblical studies with a specialization in the New Testament from the Graduate Theological Union.

At the University of Notre Dame, Sterling was appointed as Director of Graduate Studies for the Department of Theology, Associate Dean of the Faculty and Executive Associate Dean for the College of Arts and Letters, and Dean of the Graduate School in 1997, 2001, 2006 and 2008, respectively. In 2012, he was appointed as Reverend Henry L. Slack Dean of Yale Divinity School.

Research Sterling focuses on Hellenistic Judaism and has worked on New Testament and early Mediterranean and West-Asian religions. He has conducted research on the writings of Philo of Alexandria, Josephus, and Luke-Acts, and has focused on the interactions between Second Temple Jews and early Christians, as well as on the ways these groups related to the Greco-Roman world, especially in the areas of historiography and philosophy.