Speakers:

Patricia D. Ahearne-Kroll: Assistant Professor of Religion at Ohio Wesleyan University, and she teaches topics on the Hebrew Bible, Judaism in the Second Temple period and in late antiquity, and religious practice in the ancient Mediterranean world. She earned her Ph.D. from The University of Chicago Divinity School in Biblical Studies, and her research focuses on Judaism in Egypt (from the 3rd century BCE - 1st century CE). She has written about particular Jewish literary texts from Egypt (e.g., "Joseph and Aseneth" and "Artapanus"), and she is currently working on the interaction of various ethnic groups (Greeks, Egyptians, and Jews) during this time period with respect to religious practice.

Loveday Alexander: Professor Emeritus of Biblical Studies, University of Sheffield. In her teaching and research work she is exploring the links between the New Testament and the Graeco-Roman world. She edited Images of Empire and has published The Preface to Luke's Gospel. She is currently working on a series of readings of Acts through the eyes (and/or ears) of the first-century reader. She is a former Professor of New Testament at the University of Sheffield, Chair of the Social World Seminar of the British New Testament Conference, and served for five years as Secretary of the Conference. She also serves on the editorial boards of the Journal of Biblical Literature , the Journal for the Study of the New Testament and New Testament Studies.

Mary Rose D’Angelo: Associate Professor of New Testament at the University of Notre Dame. Her areas of scholarship are the origins of Christianity, Judaism in Roman antiquity and Greek and Roman religion, with particular interests in women and gender in ancient religion, and in history of exegesis. She has also published numerous articles in scholarly journals and collections on such topics as the reconstruction of women's participation in early Christianity, the representation of women in the Gospels, gendered language for the divine in ancient Judaism and Christianity, and gender and sexual politics in ancient Christianity and Judaism.

Stephen J. Davis: Professor of Religious Studies at Yale University, specializing in the history of Christianity in late antiquity. His areas of teaching and research include the study of women and gender, pilgrimage and the cult of the saints, the history of biblical interpretation, Egyptian Christianity, the Arabic Christian theological tradition, and early Christian art and material culture. As Executive Director of the Yale Monastic Archaeology Project (YMAP), he currently oversees excavations at two monasteries in Egypt. He is also author of The Cult of St. Thecla (Oxford UP 2001), The Early Coptic Papacy (AUC Press 2004), and Coptic Christology in Practice (Oxford UP 2008), and has begun work on a new book for Yale University Press called Memories of a Young Jesus, a study of infancy gospel traditions and early Christian cultural memory.

Fay Glinister: Research Fellow on the Festus Lexicon Project, funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (UK) at University College London to prepare a new text, original translation and scholarly commentary on the second century AD ‘encyclopaedia’ of Festus. Her other research interests include archaic Rome and religion. She is presently completing a monograph on the goddess Diana for Routledge Press.

Fritz Graf: Professor of Greek and Latin and Department Chair, The Ohio State University. Internationally recognized expert in Greek religion. He has published extensively on mantic experience, Orphic mysteries, magic, and Greek rituals. He is an internationally recognized scholar in Greek religion and culture, and some of his recent books include: with Sarah Iles Johnston: Ritual Texts for the Afterlife. The Bacchic Gold Tablets (London: Routledge, 2007); Der Lauf des rollenden Jahres. Lectio Teubneriana 6 (Stuttgart and Leipzig: Teubner, 1997) La magie dans l'antiquité greco-romaine, (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1994, pb 1996). - English: Magic in the Ancient World (Harvard University Press, 1997). - German:Gottesnähe und Schadenzauber (Munich: Beck, 1996). - Italian: La magia nel mondo antico (Bari and Rome: Laterza, 1995). - Greek: I mageía stin ellinoromaiki arkhaotita (Iraklion: University Press of Crete, 2004).

Carin M. Green: Professor of Classics and department chair at the University of Iowa. She teaches courses in Latin composition, Augustan poetry, Roman religion, Lucan, and Greek prose. Her book, Roman Religion and the Cult of Diana at Aricia, was published by Cambridge University Press in the fall of 2006. Dr. Green currently is working on a monograph concerning the archaic Roman deity Consus and the Vestal Virgins.

Deborah A. Green: Greenberg Assistant Professor of Religion at the University of Oregon. Her research interests lie in the history, literature, and interpretation of the Hebrew Bible, particularly as it was adopted and interpreted by the rabbis of the early centuries of the Common Era. She is currently working on a book that investigates ancient rabbinic literary images of scent, spices, incense, and perfume—specifically the curious triangulation of scent and images of sacrifice and the erotic.

Martha Himmelfarb: William H. Danforth Professor of Religion at Princeton University. Her research interests are in ancient Judaism and Christianity. She is the author of Tours of Hell: An Apocalyptic Form in Jewish and Christian Literature and Ascent to Heaven in Jewish and Christian Apocalypses, and most recently, A Kingdom of Priests: Ancestry and Merit in Ancient Judaism. She is currently working on a study of the impact of Christianity on Jewish eschatology and messianism from the second to the early seventh century.

Paul A. Holloway: Department of Theology and Religious Studies at the University of Glasgow. His interests are in ancient consolation, iconographic mediations of the divine, religious prejudice and violence in Western antiquity, the rhetoric of self-presentation and the construction of status, and religion as coping. Among other works, he has published Consolation in Philippians: Philosophical Sources and Rhetorical Strategy (SNTS Monograph Series 112; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), and he is currently working on two large projects: a commentary on Paul's Letter to the Philippians for the Hermeneia series published, by Fortress Press, and a volume on 1 Peter tentatively entitled, Coping with Prejudice: 1 Peter in Social-Psychological Perspective, for the series Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen z NT, published by Mohr Siebeck.

Annette Bourland Huizenga: Assistant Professor of New Testament at the University of Dubuque Theological Seminary. She is also a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Chicago finishing her dissertation on women’s moral education as expressed in the Pythagorean letters and in the Pastoral Epistles (1 and 2 Timothy and Titus).

Sarah Iles Johnston:Professor of Greek and Latin and Director of the Center for the Study of Religion at The Ohio State University. She is an internationally recognized scholar of Greek religion and has published extensively on magic, ritual, mythology, divination, and Orphism. Her recent works include Ancient Greek Divination (Blackwell, 2008); co-author (with Fritz Graf), Ritual Texts for the Afterlife: Orpheus and the Bacchic Gold Tablets (Routledge 2007); co-editor (with Peter T. Struck), Mantikê: Studies in Ancient Divination. Religions in the Graeco-Roman World vol. 155 (Brill 2005); editor, Religions of the Ancient World: A Guide (Harvard 2004).

James A. Kelhoffer: Associate Professor of New Testament and Early Christian Literature at Saint Louis University. His interests are in the intersection of early Christian literature with Greco-Roman philosophical and literary traditions. He has published two books: The Diet of John the Baptist: "Locusts and Wild Honey" in Synoptic and Patristic Interpretation in Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament [first series] (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2005) featured as the "Book of the Month" in The Expository Times and having received the 2008 Alpha Sigma Nu Book Award in Theology ; and Miracle and Mission: The Authentication of Missionaries and Their Message in the Longer Ending of Mark. Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament 2.112. (Tübingen, Germany: Mohr Siebeck, 2000).

Judith L. Kovacs: Associate Professor of New Testament and Greek at the University of Virginia. Her research interests include Patristic interpretation of the Bible (in which she has published a book on Patristic interpretation of 1 Corinthians), the Book of Revelation (in which she has published a recent commentary in the Blackwell Bible Commentary Series), and Clement of Alexandria (in which she is currently working on a book that focuses on his views of philosophy, martyrdom, and the nature of women).

Outi Lehtipuu: Postdoctoral researcher at the University of Helsinki (Finland) and the University of Hamburg (Germany). Her dissertation research focused on the visions of the afterlife in the gospel of Luke and in his Hellenistic surroundings, and it was published as The Afterlife Imagery in Luke's Story of the Rich Man and Lazarus. NovTestSupp 123. Leiden: Brill, 2007). She is presently writing on resurrection beliefs in the Nag Hammadi and other early Christian texts.

Christopher N. Mount: Associate Professor of New Testament in the Religious Studies department, DePaul University. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago and is an active member of the Corpus Hellenisticum Novi Testamenti group of the Society of Biblical Literature, which meets annually. The group meets to discuss papers written using the History of Religions method. Dr. Mount also specializes in Pauline studies.

Carolyn Osiek: Carolyn Osiek is Charles Fischer Catholic Professor of New Testament at Brite Divinity School of Texas Christian University. She is a past president of the Catholic Biblical Association and the Society of Biblical Literature. She is co-author with David Balch of Families in the New Testament World: Households and House Churches (Westminster John Knox, 1997) and co-editor of Early Christian Families in Context: An Interdisciplinary Dialogue (Eerdmans, 2003). She also published The Shepherd of Hermas (Hermeneia Commentaries; Fortress Press, 1999), Philippians and Philemon (Abingdon New Testament Commentaries; Abingdon Press, 2000). Her most recent publications are: Ordained Women in the Early Church, co-edited with Kevin Madigan (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2005) and A Woman's Place: House Churches in Earliest Christianity, co-authored with Margaret MacDonald (Fortress Press, 2005). She teaches in areas of social life, social-science interpretation, women in early Christianity, and early Christian families.

Turid Karlsen Seim: Head of Department, Professor, The Norwegian Institute in Rome and up until this past year has been Professor of Theology (New Testament) at the University of Oslo. In 1996, she was a Fulbright Scholar and Senior Fellow at The Institute for the Advanced Study of Religion, University of Chicago, where she worked on the Family and Religion Project at the University. She has also published extensively on early Christianity with respect to women and women’s concerns.

Diana M. Swancutt: Assistant Professor of New Testament at Yale Divinity School. A Society of Biblical Literature Regional Scholar and recent winner of the Lilly/ATS Faculty Sabbatical Grant, Professor Swancutt combines interests in gender, ethnicity and empire studies, rhetoric, ideological criticism, and ancient social practices in her interdisciplinary research. She focuses on early Christian identity formation in Pauline communities, particularly the resocialization of Greeks into Pauline Christian Judaism. Her first book, Pax Christi: Empire, Identity, and Protreptic Rhetoric in Paul’s Letter to the Romans, will be published this year. Among her current writing projects are monographs on the effects of Roman imperialism on religious and ethnic education in Pauline communities, and on gender ideology and the Body of Christ.

Respondents:

Harold W. Attridge: Lillian Claus Professor of New Testament and Dean at Yale Divinity School. He is and internationally recognized scholar of the Epistle to the Hebrews and the Gospel of John, as well as New Testament exegesis and the study of Hellenistic Judaism and the history of the early Church. He has been an editorial board member of Catholic Biblical Quarterly, the Harvard Theological Review, the Journal of Biblical Literature, and the Hermeneia Commentary Series.

Matthew C. Baldwin: Assistant Professor in the Department of Religion and Philosophy at Mars Hill College. He is a scholar of religion, history and culture in the ancient Mediterranean world, a specialist in the study of early Christianity and ancient Judaism, and in the critical interpretation of Biblical literature. He has published a book on the Acts of Peter.

François Bovon: Frothingham Professor of the History of Religion at Harvard Divinity School. He has published extensively on the Gospel of Luke and the Acts of Philip. His recent work has focused on the exegesis of New Testament texts, particularly the Gospel of Luke, and the publication and interpretation of non-canonical Acts of the Apostles, particularly the Acts of Philip, legends on Stephen, the first Christian martyr, and apocryphal fragments.

John J. Collins: Holmes Professor of Old Testament Criticism and Interpretation at Yale Divinity School. He is an internationally recognized scholar of Second Temple Judaism, who has published widely on Apocalypticism, Daniel, the Dead Sea Scrolls and Qumran, and Biblical Theology. He is also editor of a monograph series for Brill titled Journal for the Study of Judaism Supplements and of the journal Dead Sea Discoveries, and has served as editor of the Journal of Biblical Literature and as president of both the Catholic Biblical Association and the Society of Biblical Literature.

Radcliffe G. Edmonds III: Associate Professor Classics at Bryn Mawr College. His research and teaching interests center on Greek social and intellectual history, with particular focus on mythology, religion, and Platonic philosophy. He has recently published on eros and midwifery in Plato, on Orphism and the mysterious gold tablets, and on magical techniques in the “Mithras Liturgy.”

Yonder Gillihan: Assistant Professor in the Theology Department at Boston College. His expertise lies in Christian Origins, Second Temple Judaism (particularly in the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Qumran Community), Apocalypticism, and Paul. He is currently working on a book that deals with the Qumran Community in comparison to other voluntary associations in the Greco-Roman world.

David Hellholm: Professor on Det teologiske fakultet at the University of Oslo. He is an internationally recognized expert on ancient Jewish and Christian Apocalypticism, Pauline Literature, New Testament Interpretation, and Gnostic Christianity and has published widely in each area.

Jeremy F. Hultin: Assistant Professor of New Testament at Yale Divinity School. His research interests include Christian and Jewish discourse about the Law, Pauline studies, and the history of the late Second Temple period. He is also interested in the implications of historical criticism for contemporary theology. He has presented papers at academic conferences on Galatians, Colossians, Clement of Alexandria, Genesis Rabbah, and the Messianic Secret. His current writing projects include the Hermeneia commentary on Jude/2 Peter, and a recently published book The Ethics of Obscene Speech in Early Christianity and Its Environment (Brill, 2008).

Matt A. Jackson-McCabe: Associate Professor and Chair of the Religious Studies Department at Cleveland State University. His primary research interests center on the origins of Christianity in relation to Second Temple Judaism, though he has also worked in the area of Hellenistic philosophy. His published works include Logos and Law in the Letter of James (Brill, 2001) and Jewish Christianity Reconsidered (ed.; Fortress, 2007).

John Kampen: Academic Dean and Professor of New Testament at Methodist Theological School in Ohio. He is an eminent scholar of the Dead Sea Scrolls and the New Testament, specializing in the Synoptic Gospels, with emphasis on Matthew, as well as Jewish history and literature of the Greco-Roman era. He is published widely on subjects as diverse as the ancient Jewish sectarianism (especially with respect to the Dead Sea Scrolls), Gospel of Matthew, Jewish history, anti-Semitism and African-American use of the Bible.

Amy-Jill Levine: E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter Professor of New Testament Studies at Vanderbilt University Divinity School, Department of Religious Studies, and Graduate Department of Religion. She is a renowned expert in the interpretation of the New Testament from historical, feminist and literary perspectives. Her most recent books are The Misunderstood Jew: The Church and the Scandal of the Jewish Jesus (HarperSanFrancisco, 2006), the edited collection, The Historical Jesus in Context (Princeton University Press, 2006) and the fourteen-volume series, Feminist Companions to the New Testament and Early Christian Writings (Continuum).

Carolina Lopez-Ruiz: Assistant Professor in the Department of Greek and Latin at The Ohio State University. She has published a book and articles on the relationship between Greek and Northwest Semitic culture and literature as well as co-edited a book on the interaction of ancient Phoenician, Greek, and Indigenous culture. Among her specialties is the interaction of social groups in the ancient world.

Dale B. Martin: Woosley Professor of Religious Studies at Yale University. He specializes in New Testament and Christian Origins, including attention to social and cultural history of the Greco-Roman world. His books include: Slavery as Salvation: The Metaphor of Slavery in Pauline Christianity; The Corinthian Body; Inventing Superstition: from the Hippocratics to the Christians; Sex and the Single Savior: Gender and Sexuality in Biblical Interpretation; and Pedagogy of the Bible. With Patricia Cox Miller, he edited The Cultural Turn in Late Ancient Studies: Gender, Asceticism, and Historiography. He has published several articles on topics related to the ancient family, gender and sexuality in the ancient world, and ideology of modern biblical scholarship, including titles such as: "Contradictions of Masculinity: Ascetic Inseminators and Menstruating Men in Greco-Roman Culture."

Candida R. Moss: Assistant Professor of Biblical Studies in the Program of Liberal Studies at the University of Notre Dame. She wrote her dissertation on imitatio Christi and the interpretation of the death of Jesus in the Acts of the Martyrs. She has also published an article on the transfiguration scene in Mark, which looks at ways that the story resonates with both Jewish and Greek thought of the time. Her current research focuses on the history of martyrdom in the second century.

Brent Nongbri: Visiting Lecturer at Yale University. He wrote his dissertation on the ways that the modern concept of religion has been applied to ancient cultures, properly or improperly, focusing mainly on Roman culture and Pauline literature. He has published articles on the misuse of the term “embedded” when referring to the place of religion in ancient culture; the rhetorical motivation of the Maccabees as expressed in 1 and 2 Maccabees; the use of a controversial papyrus fragment in dating the Gospel of John; and the rhetorical purposes of Hebrews 6.

Michael Peppard: Ph.D. candidate in Religious Studies at Yale University, with previous degrees from Yale Divinity School and the University of Notre Dame. His areas of research include Judaism and Christianity in antiquity, Greco-Roman religions, religion and politics, and Jewish-Christian relations. His dissertation, advised by Harold Attridge, is titled “Begotten or Made? The Christian ‘Son of God’ in the Roman World.” His other writings have appeared in scholarly books and journals such as Journal for the Study of the New Testament, Judaism, and Commonweal.

Clare K. Rothschild: Assistant Professor of Theology at Lewis University. Her expertise lies in New Testament and Early Christianity, but she also is versed in Second Temple Judaism and the literature of the Greco-Roman world. She has published books entitled, Luke-Acts and the Rhetoric of History and Baptist Traditions and Q, and her third book, now in process is entitled, The History and Significance of the Pauline Attribution of Hebrews.

Celia E. Schultz: Associate Professor of Classics and former Director of Undergraduate Studies at Yale University. Her main research interests are Roman religion, Latin literature, and Roman history. She is the author of Women's Religious Activity in the Roman Republic (UNC Press 2006) and the co-editor of Religion in Republican Italy, a volume of Yale Classical Studies (2006). She has also published articles on the Roman cults of Hercules, Vesta, Venus, and Juno Sospita, as well as on Vergil's third Eclogue. She is currently working on a study of Cicero's De Divinatione.