late antiquity, social and cultural history of Rome; Christian epigraphy

Articles

“A New Gnosticism: Why Simon Gathercole and Mark Goodacre on the Gospel of Thomas Change the Field.” Journal of the Study of the New Testament 36/3 (2014): 240-50.

“Rethinking the Origins of the Nag Hammadi Library.” (Co-authored with Justine Ariel Blount), Journal of Biblical Literature 133 (2014): 399-419.

“Apolutrosis as Ritual and Sacrament: Determining a Ritual Context for Death in Second-century Valentinianism.” Journal of Early Christian Studies 17/4 (2009): 525-61.

“The Ophite Diagram and other Christian ‘Books of the Dead’.” ARC 33 (2005): 89-122.

“‘Enslavement to Fate,’ ‘Cosmic Pessimism’ and other Explorations of the Late Roman Psyche: A Brief History of a Historiographical Trend.” Studies in Religion/Sciences Réligieuses 33 3/4 (2005): 277-99.

“Biblical Illusions, Biblical Allusions: Hollywood Blockbusters and Scripture.” Journal of Religion and Film 8/1 (2004).

“Genesis Exegetical Traditions in the Trimorphic Protennoia.” Vigiliae Christianae 55 (2001): 20-44.

“The Jesus Seminar: A Classroom Exercise.” Journal of Teaching Theology and Religion 4/1 (2001): 23-26.

“What did the Montanists Read?” Harvard Theological Review 94/4 (2001): 427-48.

Chapters in Books

“Astrology in Early Christianities.” In Ancient Astronomy in Its Mediterranean and Near Eastern Contexts (300 BC–AD 300), ed. Alan Bowen and Francesca Rochberg. Leiden: Brill, forthcoming 2015.

“Popular Christianity and Lived Religion in Late Antique Rome: Seeing Magic in the Catacombs.” In Locating Popular Culture in the Ancient World, ed. Lucy Grig. London: Cambridge University Press, forthcoming 2015.

“Reinterpreting ‘Pagans’ and ‘Christians’ from Rome’s Late Antique Mortuary Evidence.” In Pagans and Christians in Fourth-Century Rome, ed. Michele Salzman and Marianne Saghy. London: Cambridge University Press, forthcoming 2015.

“The Crafting of Memory in Late Roman Mortuary Spaces.” In Memory in Ancient Rome and Early Christianity, ed. Karl Galinsky. New York: Oxford University Press, forthcoming 2014.

“Religious Diversity in the Roman Empire.” Co-authored with Eric Orlin. In The Blackwell Companion to Religious Diversity, ed. Kevin Schilbrack. Oxford: Blackwell, forthcoming 2014.

“Living Images of the Divine: Female Theurgists in Late Antiquity.” In Daughters of Hecate: Women and Magic in the Ancient World, ed. Kimberly Stratton and Dayna Kalleres. New York: Oxford University Press, forthcoming 2014.

“The Problem of Bad Baptisms: Unclean Spirits, Exorcism, and the Unseen in Second-Century Christianity.” In Beyond the Gnostic Gospels: Studies in Honor of Elaine Pagels, ed. Lance Jenott, Nicola Denzey Lewis, Philippa Townsend and Eduard Iricinschi, 187-203. Berlin: Mohr-Siebeck, 2013.

“Death on the Nile: Egyptian Codices, Gnosticism, and Early Christian Books of the Dead.” In Practicing Gnosis: Ritual, Magic, Theurgy and Liturgy in Nag Hammadi, Manichaean and Other Ancient Literature: Essays in Honor of Birger A. Pearson, ed. April DeConick and Gregory Shaw. Nag Hammadi and Manichaean Studies 85, 161-80. Leiden: Brill, 2013.

“Roses and Violets for the Ancestors: Gifts to the Dead and Ancient Roman Forms of Social Exchange.” In The Gift in Antiquity, ed. Michael Satlow. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2013.

“‘Facing the Beast’: Justin Martyr, Seneca, and the Emotional Life of the Martyr.” In Stoicism and Early Christianity, ed. Ismo Dunderberg and Tuomas Rasimus, 43-59. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2011.

“Fate and the Wandering Stars: Determinism in the Gospel of Judas and Jewish Apocalyptic Literature.” In The Codex Judas Papers: Proceedings of the International Congress on the Tchacos Codex Held at Rice University, Houston, Texas, March 13-16, 2008, ed. April DeConick, 289-304. Leiden: Brill, 2009.

“The Bible in Film,” and “Nonbiblical Narrative in Film,” co-authored with Patrick Gray. In Teaching the Bible Through Popular Culture and the Arts, ed. Patrick Gray and Mark Roncace, 97-174. New York: Oxford University Press, 2007.

Five short teaching pieces in Teaching the Bible: Practical Strategies for Classroom Instruction, ed. Mark Roncace and Patrick Gray. New York: Oxford University Press for the Society of Biblical Literature, 2005.

“Bardaisan of Edessa.” In A Companion to Second-Century?Christian “Heretics,” ed. Antti Marjanen and Petri Luomanen, 159-84. Leiden: Brill, 2005).

“Women and the Bible.” In The Bible as Literature, ed. John Gabel, Anthony York and David Citino, 5th edition, 327-58. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005.

“A New Star on the Horizon: Astral Christologies and Stellar Debates in Early Christian Discourse.” In Prayer, Magic and the Stars, ed. Scott Noegel, Brannon Wheeler, and Joel Thomas Walker, 207-21. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2003).

“The Limits of Ethnic Categories.” In A Handbook of Early Christianity: Social Science Approaches, ed. Anthony Blasi, Paul-André Turcotte, and Jean Duhaime, 489-507. Lanham, MD: Alta Mira Press, 2002).

Book Reviews, Film Reviews, and Encyclopedia Articles

“Realm of the Dead,” “Cult of the Dead,” “Domestic Religion,” and “Cemeteries” for the Brill Encyclopedia of Early Christianity.

“Gnosticism,” “Catacombs, Roman,” “Salvation,” and other brief entries for the Routledge Dictionary of Ancient Mediterranean Religions, ed. Eric Orlin, Michael Satlow, Liz Fried and Jennifer Knust. New York: Routledge, forthcoming 2015.

“Popular Religion and Magic in the Roman World.” In The Oxford Encyclopedia of Bible and Gender Studies. New York: Oxford University Press, forthcoming 2015.

“Death and Burial in the Roman World.” In The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Bible and Archaeology. New York: Oxford University Press, forthcoming 2014.

“Gnosticism.” In Oxford Bibliographies Online in Early Christianity. New York: Oxford University Press, 2013.

Review of Laura Salah Nasrallah, Christian Responses to Roman Art and Architecture (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010) in College Art Association Reviews. Online at http://www.caareviews.org/reviewers/1466.

Review of Kathleen E. Corley, Maranatha: Women’s Funerary Rituals and Christian Origins (Philadelphia: Fortress, 2010) in Catholic Biblical Quarterly (2012).

Review of Kate Cooper and Julia Hillner, Religion, Dynasty, and Patronage in Early Christian Rome, 300-900 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007) in Classical Review 60 (2010): 251-3.

“Catacombs.” In the Encyclopedia of Ancient Greece and Rome. New York: Oxford University Press, 2009.

Review of Birger Pearson, Ancient Gnosticism (Philadelphia: Fortress, 2008) in Biblical Theology Bulletin 39:1 (2009): 49.

“Alchemy.” In The Encyclopedia of the Bible and Its Reception. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2009.

“The Shepherd of Hermas.” In The New Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2005.

Review of Amy-Jill Levine, ed., A Feminist Companion to Matthew (Cleveland: Pilgrim Press, 2001) in The Review of Biblical Literature (2006). Online at http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=4313.

Review of Kathleen E. Corley and Robert L. Webb, eds., Jesus and Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ (New York: Continuum, 2004) for the Review of Biblical Literature, (2005). Online at http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=4438&CodePage=4438

Review of Carl B. Smith II, No Longer Jews: The Search for Gnostic Origins (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2004) in The Catholic Biblical Quarterly (2005).

Review of Geza Vermes, Jesus and the World of Judaism (Philadelphia: Fortress Press) in Shofar: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Jewish Studies (2004).

Review of Larry Hurtado, Lord Jesus Christ: Devotion to Christ in Earliest Christianity (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2003) in Studies of Religion/Sciences Réligieuses 32/4 (2003): 522-24.

Review of Philip A. Harland, Associations, Synagogues, and Congregations: Claiming a Place in Ancient Mediterranean Society (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 2003) in Studies in Religion/Sciences Réligieuses 32 (2003): 376-79.

Review of Karen L. King, What is Gnosticism? (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2003), in Bryn Mawr Classical Review (2003). Online at http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/bmcr/2003/2003-07-26.html.

Film Review of “Lara Croft: Tomb Raider” in The Journal of Religion and Film 5/2 (2001). Online at http://www.unomaha.edu/~wwwjrf/tombraid.htm.

Review of Paul-Hubert Poirier, ed., Le Tonnerre, Intellect Parfait in Journal of the American Oriental Society 120/4 (2001): 77-8.

“John of Nikiu.” In Late Antiquity: A Guide to the Postclassical World, ed. Glen Bowersock, Peter Brown, and Oleg Grabar, 527. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1999).

Review of Birger Pearson, ed., Nag Hammadi Codex VII, in Journal of the American Oriental Society 118/4 (1998): 589-90.