Review of two books on Christians in late Roman Africa

Against a longstanding tradition of ascribing religious conversion to the centurion who witnesses Jesus’s death in Mark 15:39, I argue that his acclamation of Jesus as υἱὸς θεοῦ is better understood within the narrative as the words of a conquered enemy. The centurion’s confession parallels the responses of unclean spirits and Legion, two ot…[Read more]

This anthology of ancient nonbiblical Christian literature presents informed introductions to and readable translations of a wide range of little-known apocryphal texts, most of which have never before been translated into any modern language. An introduction to the volume as a whole addresses the most significant features of the writings included…[Read more]

Life and Letters of Paul is a writing-intensive seminar taught on two-year rotation at Ferrum College.

In 1958, American historian of religion Morton Smith made an astounding discovery in the Mar Saba monastery in Jerusalem. Copied into the back of a seventeenth-century book was a lost letter attributed to Clement of Alexandria (ca. 150-215 CE) that contained excerpts from a longer version of the Gospel of Mark written by Mark himself and…[Read more]

Many scholars have used two verses from an epistle appended to the main body of 2 Maccabees to suggest a canon, proto-canon, or body of scripture is present already during the Hasmonean era and even before. We question such conclusions by investigating the background and contents of the epistle, using both historical-critical and rhetorical…[Read more]

This brief study investigates the desire for a fixed textual form as it pertains to scripture in the Judean tradition. It particularly delves into this phenomenon in three early versions of the Septuagint origin myth. is paper argues that this myth is invaluable for the study of transmission and reception of scripture, as it is one of the…[Read more]

An interview with Francis Landy on the occasion of his retirement from the University of Alberta

Review of Transforming Literature into Scripture: Texts as Cult Objects at Nineveh and Qumran by Russell Hobson

Review of The Ways of a King: Legal and Political Ideas in the Bible by Geoffrey P. Miller

Review of The Literary Imagination in Jewish Antiquity by Eva Mroczek

This essay offers a close reading of the dirge in Ezek 27, the metaphorical description of the famed and sinking Tyrian ship. The analysis pays close attention to the symbolic world of the text, situating it within the literary and historical milieux of fourth-century BCE Judah, when Jerusalemite literati began codifying their authoritative texts…[Read more]

An examination of the Song of the Sea (Exodus 15) and allusions to it in the book of Isaiah

This essay summarizes Runar Thorsteinsson’s groundbreaking book, Paul’s Interlocutor in Romans 2, and situates the remaining essays in the volume.

In the Ba‘al Cycle’s description of the threshold separating the realms of the dead from that of the living, the key reference point is described as “the two tells (at) the boundary of the netherworld” (CAT 1.4 viii, 4). The specific word used to describe both topographical features is tl, the tell, an object well known in the archaeology of the…[Read more]

An exploration of the book of Chronicles vis-à-vis the concept of utopia

In his children’s book The Polar Express (1985), Chris Van Allsburg tells the story of a boy who travels to the North Pole and receives a bell from Santa’s sleigh. The sound of the bell nourishes the boy’s belief in Santa into adulthood. Van Allsburg’s narrative plays off a theme central to the Gospel of John: the relationship between hearing…[Read more]

An exploration of the Hebrew Bible’s prophetic literature vis-à-vis Science Fiction and Science Fiction theory

This article traces the evolution of Qumran studies from its inception in controversy into a field that is a model of interfaith collegiality and cooperation. A correlation is drawn between three phases that have been perceived in this evolutionary process, and developments in the scholarly consensus about the identification of the communities of…[Read more]

The author of Joseph and Aseneth writes a lengthy narrative about Aseneth’s conversion, thereby providing a justification for Joseph’s marriage to an Egyptian woman. The author explicitly connects her seven-day period of withdrawal to creation, thus portraying her conversion as a divinely wrought new creation. In addition, her eight-day con…[Read more]