Corinthian Matters

Category: Periods, Roman

  • Strabo’s Mediterranean

    The historian and geographer Strabo visited the Corinthia in 29 BC and later drafted what would become one of the most influential and misunderstood accounts of a city made wealthy and corrupted from its position astride a connecting Isthmus. The passage (8.6.20-23) strongly colored the first European accounts of the region, and made its way into so many modern views of Greek and Roman…

  • The End of Greek Athletics in Late Antiquity (Remijsen)

    This new book by Sofie Remijsen, scheduled for publication this month with Cambridge University Press, offers a fresh evaluation of how and why the tradition of athletic competitions came to an end in late antiquity. A work like this is long overdue in light of the long-standing and battered assumption that an imperial edict of Theodosius the Great simply shut the games down in the later fourth…

  • Reading 1 Corinthians with Philosophically Educated Women (Barnes)

    The last issue of the Review of Biblical Literature includes a critical review of Nathan Barnes’ book, Reading 1 Corinthians with Philosophically Educated Women, Eugene, OR, 2014: Wipf and Stock Publishers. The book, which revises Barnes’ PhD dissertation on the subject (2012), explores how philosophically educated women in the young Corinthian church would have interacted with concepts such as family, marriage, and patronage.…

  • Paul’s Political Strategy in 1 Corinthians 1-4 (Bitner)

    Bradley Bitner’s new book on Paul’s political theology, published last month with Cambridge University Press, looks to offer an interesting approach to understanding the opening chapters of the New Testament letter of 1 Corinthians. Here are the details from the publisher page: Bitner, Bradley J. Paul’s Political Strategy in 1 Corinthians 1-4. Cambridge University Press,…

  • George Guthrie: A new commentary on 2 Corinthians

    George Guthrie, who recently published a massive new commentary on 2 Corinthians for the Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament series, talks about his book in this two part interview at the website Books at a Glance: Interview with George Guthrie, author of 2 CORINTHIANS (Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament), Part 1 Interview with George…

  • Review: Litfin’s Paul’s Theology of Preaching

    Phillip Long who blogs at Reading Acts has posted a longish review of Duane Litfin’s Paul’s Theology of Preaching: The Apostle’s Challenge to the Art of Persuasion in Ancient Corinth. Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2015. First, the abstract for the book from the publisher’s page: “We preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and…

  • Thirty New Roman Sites on the Corinthian Isthmus

    I recently finished editing proofs of a chapter for the forthcoming book, “The Bridge of the Untiring Sea”: The Corinthian Isthmus from Prehistory to Late Antiquity”. The piece, which grew out of a paper I delivered in Athens in 2007, offers a new synthesis of settlement patterns on the Isthmus during the Early Roman (44…

  • The First Urban Churches: Roman Corinth (In the Works)

    A couple of years ago, I had the good fortune of participating in a session at the Society of Biblical Literature (SBL) conference on the theme of Polis and Ekklesia: Investigations of Urban Christianity. The paper I delivered outlined new perspectives on the diolkos and the implications of this research for understanding the commercial backdrop…

  • 2013-2014 Publications in Corinthian Studies: New Testament, Christianity, and Judaism

    This is the fourth and final post in a series of bibliographic releases of new Corinthian scholarship published or digitized in 2013-2014. See this post last last Monday for further information about the sources of this bibliography and instructions for accessing the Zotero database. For earlier releases, see these posts: Prehistoric-Hellenistic Periods Roman Period Byzantine-Modern…

  • 2013-2014 Publications in Corinthian Studies: Roman Period

    This is the second in a series of bibliographic posts related to Corinthian scholarship published, uploaded, or digitized in 2013-2014. Today’s report contains new scholarship broadly related to the Corinthia in the Roman and Late Antique periods, but not articles and books related to the New Testament (which we will post separately next week). Download…