Paul Thigpen, Ph.D., is an award-winning journalist and best-selling author. Among his most popular titles are The Rapture Trap (Ascension, 2001) and the novel My Visit to Hell (Realms, 2007). Dr. Thigpen's writing reflects a wide variety of genres and subjects: history and biography, spirituality and apologetics, anthologies and devotionals, family life and children's books, study guides and reference works, fiction and collections of poetry and prayers. In addition to the forty books he has authored or compiled, he has published more than five hundred journal, magazine, and newsletter articles in more than forty religious and secular periodicals for both scholarly and popular audiences. His work has been circulated worldwide and translated into twelve languages. A 1977 summa cum laude graduate of Yale University (in Religious Studies), Dr. Thigpen was awarded the George W. Woodruff Fellowship at Emory University, where he earned an M.A. (1993) and a Ph.D. (1995) in Historical Theology. In 1993 he was named as a Jacob K. Javits Fellow by the U.S. Department of Education. He has since served on the theology faculties of several universities and colleges and is currently the editor of TAN Books, based in Charlotte, North Carolina.