Stephen Schmidt served in Jerusalem as Editorial Assistant to Jerusalem Perspective magazine in the early 1990s. He received his B.A. in Computer Science from Potsdam College, New York, and an M.Div. and M.A. in Biblical Literature from the School of Theology at Oral Roberts University, Tulsa, Oklahoma. He was a doctoral research student at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 1993, and in 1997 pursued doctoral studies in Ancient Judaism at the Jewish Theological Seminar of America in New York City.