Philip Francis Esler (born 27 August 1952) is the Portland Chair in New Testament Studies at the University of Gloucestershire. He is an Australian-born higher education administrator and academic who became the inaugural Chief Executive of the UK's Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) in 2005, remaining in that role until 2009. From 1995 to 2010 he was Professor of Biblical Criticism at St Andrews University. From 1998 to 2001 he was Vice-Principal for Research and Provost of St Leonard’s College at St Andrews. During the years 1999 to 2003 he served as a member of the Board of Scottish Enterprise Fife. From October 2010 to March 2013 he was Principal at St Mary’s University College Twickenham. He had an earlier career as a lawyer, working in Sydney during 1978-81 and 1984-92 as an articled clerk, then solicitor and barrister. Esler is a leading figure with an international reputation in the field of social-scientific interpretation of biblical texts. He applies ideas and perspectives from disciplines such as social psychology, anthropology and sociology to Old and New Testament texts to gain a better sense of what they meant to their original audiences. He has also published in the areas of New Testament theology and the Bible and the visual arts. He holds a Doctor of Divinity from the University of Oxford, by submitted work (2008), and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (elected 2009). Life, career and scholarship Born in Sydney, Australia on 27 August 1952, Esler completed secondary schooling at the then named Marist Brothers High School in the Sydney suburb of Eastwood. He read English, Greek and Law at the University of Sydney (B.A. Hons, LL.B) from 1971 to 1977. During 1977 he also worked as Associate to Mr Justice W. H. Collins of the New South Wales Supreme Court. From 1978 to 1981 he was employed as an articled clerk and solicitor at Allen, Allen and Hemsley, at the same time completing undergraduate Hebrew at Sydney University on a non-degree basis (1978-1980) and undertaking part of an LLM. In 1979 he and four others established National Outlook, an Australian Christian ecumenical monthly magazine devoted to justice and peace issues. In October 1981, Esler went to Magdalen College, Oxford and undertook a D. Phil in New Testament. At that time the new movement to apply social-scientific ideas and perspectives in biblical interpretation was gaining momentum. Esler