Lori Anne Ferrell is a professor of early modern history and literature at Claremont Graduate University in California. She wrote The Bible and the People.

Robert Alter is the Class of 1937 Professor of Hebrew and Comparative Literature at the University of California, Berkeley, where he has taught for more than 30 years. He has translated books of the Bible and written extensively on the literary aspects of the Bible, most recently Pen of Iron: American Prose and the King James Bible.

The Markkula Center for Applied Ethics at Santa Clara University in Santa Clara, Calif., is dedicated to researching modern ethical issues and attempting to create solutions in diverse fields such as bioethics, the Internet, government and character ethics.

Keith David Watenpaugh is a contemporary Middle Eastern historian and Islamic studies specialist at the University of California, Davis, who can discuss human rights in the Middle East, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and Christian-Muslim relations. Watenpaugh is the author of Being Modern in the Middle East and editor of The Arab Intellectual and the Question of Modernity (2009).

Flagg Miller is a religious studies professor at the University of California, Davis, who can talk about bin Laden’s influence among a diverse range of Islamic militant movements. Miller is writing a book, Becoming Bin Laden, that investigates the contents of the al-Qaeda leader’s own audiotape library, a collection of more than 1,500 tapes.

Sarah Eltantawi is a scholar of religion, with a specialty in Islamic studies. She has written widely on Islam and politics.

Richard G. Hovannisian is a professor emeritus in history at University of California, Los Angeles. He has written about and studied the history of Orthodox Christianity.

Alexei D. Krindatch is director for membership growth and research at the Patriarch Athenagoras Orthodox Institute at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, Calif., and a leading researcher on Eastern Orthodox Christianity. The institute is “inter-Orthodox” and describes itself as an independent, not-for-profit teaching and research institution affiliated with the GTU and the University of California.

Lara Medina is an associate professor of Chicano and Chicana studies with an interest in politics and religion at California State University, Northridge. She wrote Las Hermanas: Chicana/Latina Religious-Political Activism in the U.S. Catholic Church.