Paula Fredriksen is the Aurelio Professor of Scripture at Boston University. The "On Faith" panelist previously held teaching positions at the University of Pittsburgh, University of California -- Berkeley, Stanford and Princeton. She has also taught at Hebrew University in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv University. Fredriksen earned her doctorate in the history of religions (ancient Christianity, Graeco-Roman religions) at Princeton, writing her dissertation on "Augustine's Early Interpretations of Paul." She has published widely on the social and intellectual history of ancient Christianity from the late Second Temple period to the fall of the Roman Empire in the West. Her books include From Jesus to Christ: The Origins of the New Testament Images of Jesus (1988 and 2000), for which she won the 1988 Yale Press Governors' Award for Best Book, and Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews: A Jewish Life and the Emergence of Christianity (1999), for which she won a National Jewish Book Award. Together with Adele Reinhartz, she edited and contributed to Jesus, Judaism, and Christian Anti-Judaism: Reading the New Testament After the Holocaust (2002). She also edited and contributed to On 'The Passion of the Christ' (2005), a collection of essays about Mel Gibson's controversial film. Her latest book, Augustine and the Jews, is set for publication in 2007.

For more than 40 years, “On Faith” panelist Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz has devoted himself to the monumental undertaking of translating and reinterpreting the Talmud, the vast collection of rabbinic writings that constitute Jewish civil and religious laws. Steinsaltz, who lives in Jerusalem, began this task in 1965, when he founded The Israel Institute for Talmudic Publications. The Steinsaltz Edition of the Talmud, of which 37 volumes have been published so far, has made the Talmud accessible to tens of thousands of Hebrew speakers. In 1989, he began producing an English edition of 22 volumes. Since 1994, 15 volumes have been published in French, and four have appeared in Russian. The Talmud project has been described as the most important Jewish publication endeavor of the 20 th Century. Steinsaltz has written some 60 books and hundreds of articles on a wide variety of topics, including Hasidism and the Jewish mystical tradition of Kabbalah. One of his most popular books is The Thirteen Petalled Rose , which he describes as “a little book for the soul.” In 1989, Steinsaltz established a Russian branch of Mekor Chaim--the first Jewish institution to receive official recognition in the former Soviet Union . He also founded the Aleph Society, and the Mekor Chaim Educational Institutions. In 1988, Steinsaltz received the prestigious Israel Prize--his nation's highest honor. He has lectured at major universities and research institutions in the United States and Europe, including Princeton University , Yale University , Columbia University , the Woodrow Wilson Center , Oxford University and the Sorbonne.

Gustav Niebuhr is an associate professor of religion and the media, an interdisciplinary position in the College of Arts & Sciences and the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University. Since June 2004, the “On Faith” panelist has directed the Religion & Society Program, an interdisciplinary undergraduate major. Niebuhr served as a visiting fellow/scholar in residence at the Center for the Study of Religion at Princeton University from December 2001 to 2003. Supported by a Ford Foundation Grant, he conducted research on religious diversity and interfaith collaboration. Prior to his academic tenure, Niebuhr was a national correspondent for The Washington Post, the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal, writing feature and analytical articles, and reporting on news about religion. He won several awards, including the 1993 Templeton Religion Writer of the Year Award from the Religion Newswriters Association. His articles have appeared in the New York Times Magazine, the New York Times Book Review, the Carnegie Reporter, the Christian Century, Tricycle: The Buddhist Review and Beliefnet.com. An experienced public lecturer,Niebuhr most recently spoke at Auburn Theological Seminary in May 2006 on “Is ‘Tolerance’ a Social Good?” and at Massachusetts Institute of Technology in May 2005, he lectured on “Religion as News.”

"On Faith" panelist Pamela K. Taylor is co-founder of Muslims for Progressive Values and director of the Islamic Writers Alliance. She is a member of the national board of advisors to the Network of Spiritual Progressives, and served as co-chair of the Progressive Muslim Union for two years. Taylor is a strong supporter of the woman imam movement, which seeks the full participation of Muslim women in every aspect of life, including the pulpit. In July 2005, she became the first woman in centuries to officiate Friday prayers in a mosque when the United Muslim Association of Toronto and the Muslim Canadian Congress invited her to serve as guest imam. (This event followed a number of services, sermons and prayer sessions led by women held in private venues because no mosque agreed to host them.) In February 2006, when the former Grand Mufti of Marseilles visited Toronto, he requested that Taylor lead him in congregational prayer as an unequivocal demonstration of his support for female imams. Taylor has also been active in interfaith dialogue for 20 years, both in local initiatives and speaking at numerous conferences, universities, and churches. She received her MTS from Harvard Divinity School, and writes regularly on spiritual matters and the Islamic faith. She has essays in Nurturing Child and Adolescent Spirituality: Perspectives from the World's Religious Traditions (2006) and the forthcoming The Veil: Women Writers on Its History, Lore, and Politics (2007). She has written hundreds of articles and opinion pieces for newspapers, magazines, and journals, and is an award winning poet.