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ma.marilou.ibita@dlsu.edu.ph

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Ma. Marilou S. Ibita 

Full Professor 5

Educational Background

PhD in Theology

MA Religious Studies

MA Advanced Studies in Theology and Religion

BS Nursing

Ma. Marilou S. Ibita is a biblical scholar-theologian with advanced degrees in Religious Studies and Theology from the Institute of Formation and Religious Studies, Quezon City, and the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (KU Leuven), Belgium, where she earned her PhD and STD. She is a full professor at De La Salle University, a visiting professor at KU Leuven, and was the 2024 Distinguished Fellow of the Anthropocene at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam.

Dr. Ibita has held leadership roles in the Society of Biblical Literature (SBL) and the European Association of Biblical Studies (EABS). At EABS, she co-founded and co-chairs several research units, including The Bible, Ecology and Sustainability, and Museums and the Bible, and co-chairs A Critical History of Exegesis Since Around 1900. Presently, she is a member of the Board of Trustees of the Catholic Biblical Association of the Philippines and EABS Committee Member-at-Large.

Research Interest

  • Corinthian Correspondence
  • Gospels
  • Contextual biblical interpretation (feminist, postcolonial, ecological-economics, trauma-informed, and future-oriented hermeneutics). 
  • Rights-based biblical hermeneutics
  • UN SDGs and biblical hermeneutics

Selected Publications

  • Ibita, Ma. M. S. (2025). Matthew 13.1–9 and Soil Degradation: A Subaltern and Ecological Reading. Journal for the Study of the New Testament, 47(3), 376–396. https://doi.org/10.1177/0142064X241300112
  • Ibita, M. M. S. (2024). Mary and Maternal Health: Decolonizing Luke 1–2 Amidst the Crisis of Teen Pregnancy. Journal for the Study of the New Testament, 47(1), 77–92. https://doi.org/10.1177/0142064X241262271
  • Ibita, Ma. M. S., & Ibita, Ma. M. S. (2024). Biblical Ecological Trauma Hermeneutics in a Post-Haiyan Context. In L. J. Lawrence, P.-B. Smit, H. M. Strømmen, & C. van der Walt (Eds.), Challenging Contextuality: Bibles and Biblical Scholarship in Context (pp. 323–344). Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/9780191982415.003.0018
  • Ibita, M. M. S. (2024). Filming Biblical Interpretations from the Ground: Anti-Empire Matthean Interpretations in Huwag Kang Papatay (2017) and the Philippine “Drug War.” Religions, 15(2), Article 2. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel15020212
  • Ibita, M. M. S. (2024). The Glocal Filipin@s and the Pasyon through the Lens of Ethnicity. In C. Lledo-Gomez, A. M. Brazal, & M. M. S. Ibita (Eds.), 500 Years of Christianity and the Global Filipino/a. Springer Nature. https://link.springer.com/book/9783031474996
  • Ibita, M. M. S. (2023). Partaking of the Death-Proclaiming Meal for Life: Re-Reading 1 Cor 11:17–34 from the Lens of Post-Traumatic Growth. In N. Leach, D. C. Smith, & T. Keddie (Eds.), Revelation and Material Religion in the Roman East: Essays in Honor of Steven J. Friesen (pp. 301–313). Routledge.
  • Ibita, Ma. M., & Ibita, Ma. M. S. (2023). “He has Filled the Hungry with Good Things” (Lk 1:53): Theologizing on the Pandemic, Pagpupuri, and Pantries. In S. Borkataky-Varma, C. A. Eberhart, & M. B. Kartzow (Eds.), Religious Responses to Pandemics and Crises: Isolation, Survival, and #Covidchaos (pp. 52–66). Routledge.
  • Ibita, Ma. M. S. (2018). Exploring the (In)Visibility of the Christ-believers’ “Trans-Ethnicity”: A Lowland Filipina Catholic’s Perspective. In K. M. Hockey & D. G. Horrell (Eds.), Ethnicity, Race, Religion: Identities and Ideologies in Early Jewish and Christian Texts, and in Modern Biblical Interpretation (pp. 183–201). T&T Clark. https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/ethnicity-race-religion-9780567677303/

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