Michael Penn is the Teresa Hihn Moore Professor of Religious Studies at Stanford University, and formerly taught at Mount Holyoke College in Massachusetts. His writings include the book Kissing Christians: Ritual, Community, and the Late Ancient Church (ISBN 978-0812238808). He received a Guggenheim Fellowship and other grants for studies of the Syriac Christians and their relationship to Islam. He was quoted in USA Today regarding the veracity of the Gospel of Judas.