Our People

Sydney Tooth

 
 

Sydney Tooth, MTheol, MTh, PhD

 

Lecturer in New Testament and Greek

 

Having grown up in Texas, Sydney started her undergraduate degree at Baylor University before falling in love with Scotland and transferring to the University of St Andrews, where she studied Theology and Biblical Studies. She then spent a year in Aberdeen as a Relay Worker with UCCF. After Relay, she moved down to Edinburgh for her Master’s and then PhD in Biblical Studies at the University of Edinburgh. For the past two years, she has been an Adjunct Lecturer of New Testament at the Faith Mission Bible College in Edinburgh. She is a committee member and the TRS-UK Representative for the British New Testament Society.

‍Her speciality is in the Pauline epistles, with her doctoral research focused on 1 and 2 Thessalonians, two letters which she says are relatively overlooked within Pauline scholarship. A key argument in the debate over the authorship of 2 Thessalonians has been its supposedly differing eschatology when compared to 1 Thessalonians. In her work she compares the two letters and shows how, while both letters have different emphases, their eschatological accounts are compatible and, indeed, they very closely match eschatology found in other parts of the New Testament such as the gospels and Revelation. Sydney says:

Eschatology is so often taught poorly or ignored completely, but for Paul it was a key conviction and motivating truth: our Lord is coming back!”

‍Sydney is married to Doug and they have a daughter, Sophie. Her interests include travelling, baking, reading novels, and playing the piano.