Category: Religion, Churches
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On Phoebe, Honored Courier of St. Paul (Michael Peppard)
We’ve mentioned Phoebe of Kenchreai here at Corinthian Matters as an individual who was not simply a “helper” to St. Paul — one translation of the Greek diakonos) — but also a prostasis, an influential member of some wealth and authority in the earliest Christian community of the region. Michael Peppard has recently published an article in Commonweal (“Household Names:…
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Routledge Encyclopedia of Ancient Mediterranean Religions
This new Routledge Encyclopedia of Ancient Mediterranean Religions, edited by Eric Orlin and a team of collaborators, claims to be the “first comprehensive single-volume reference work offering authoritative coverage of ancient religions in the Mediterranean world.” As the publisher page describes it: The volume’s scope extends from pre-historical antiquity in the third millennium B.C.E.…
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On the Churches and Saints of Corinth
Tomorrow marks the feast day of Kodratos, Corinth’s most famous ancient country saint martyred during the reign of the Emperor Decius. As I noted a number of years ago when I paraphrased a Latin version of his life, Kodratos was Corinth’s quintessential rural saint: an orphan raised by his Father God in the fields and mountains after his parents’ early death. When he descended into the city of sin…
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2015 Publications in Corinthian Studies: New Testament, Christianity, and Judaism
This is the third in a series of five bibliographic reports related to Corinthian scholarship published or digitized in 2015. This post also marks the next installment in a Lenten series on resources for the study of Judaism, New Testament, and early Christianity in Corinth (see last week’s post on Corinthian-related blogs). Today’s report presents scholarship published or digitized in 2015 related…
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Coming Soon: Rural Lives and Landscapes in Late Byzantium (Gerstel)
Landscape approaches to the Byzantine world are still uncommon these days despite the increasing integration of regional approaches into ancient and medieval studies generally. It is gratifying, then, to see that another work dedicated to the subject of Byzantine landscapes will be out in print this month. Sharon Gerstel’s book looks delightful in its combination…
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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…
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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…
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Corinthiaka at the AIA Meeting: New Orleans, January 2015
One of the small benefits of not attending the annual meeting of the Archaeological Institute of America next month is that I will not have to spend Christmas break frantically working on a paper that I was unable to complete during a busy semester. On the other hand, New Orleans in January should be fantastic,…
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The Final Pagan Generation
Over the Thanksgiving break last week, I found a few minutes to harvest a few of the thousands of unread Google alert emails about Corinthiaka. No promises that I’ll make my back through all or most of this vast collection of emails, but I have begun to update the Corinthian Studies Zotero Library as I’ve…
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Society of Biblical Literature Conference, San Diego, 2014
I have always been impressed with the enormous output of scholarship directed to understanding biblical literature and backgrounds. In past years, I’ve posted paper titles or abstracts for presentations at the annual and international meetings of the Society of Biblical Literature: Baltimore 2013, Chicago 2012, London 2011, and Atlanta 2010. As Thanksgiving week has just…
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