University admins, very solemnly: “To protect the mission, it is our sacred duty to ensure that this pile of money survives—nay, grows!—for the rest of human civilization.“ Also university admins: “We’re noticing that books are kinda out rn? So we’re 86’ing three of the four libraries.“

Just had Canvas stop working as I was typing comments on a student paper. I now can’t access anyone’s work or grades. Strangely, this never happened back when I used a grade book and had students email me their papers, a system no shareholders extracted money from.

Cannot wait for a presidential candidate in 2048 to be dogged by questions based on their 2026 Canvas discussion board posts.

"vanity, vanity, all of life is vanity," he says to himself while trapped in a Syriac copy editing doom loop.

Question for my NT colleagues: does anyone have easy access to the Jewish Annotated New Testament and could tell me the print page numbers of David Frankfurter's Revelation introduction?

Last day of free download! 😱

Calling all Professors of Religion! Do you teach an intro to the study of religion course? If so, would you be willing to share your syllabus? Collecting for research purposes.

Rip to every president who lost a war in the middle east but I’m different. And better. Maybe even good enough to win a war in the middle east

Senior thesis advising has to be the most rewarding part of undergraduate teaching. And now that I think of it, that is probably why the work functionally amounts to unpaid labor.

What the students don't know (and surely don't care to know) is that all my clever little titles for class sessions are actually just pithy titles of books I like.

The TA is, far and away, the strongest NTT faculty union contract I've ever seen. Includes not just the 20% raises (as if that weren't enough!) but: - Paid prof development leave (i.e., sabbaticals) - Course releases for union service - Union security (fair share fees) - PI rights - Academic Freedom

🗣️ new Element in Religion in Late Antiquity! 🗣️ @monikaamsler.bsky.social's EDUCATION IN RELIGIOUS CONTEXTS OF LATE ANTIQUITY ⚡⚡⚡ free through April 8! ⚡⚡⚡ www.cambridge.org/core/element...

So, um... this is bad. Really bad. I looked at the letters that were translated by the AI, and the very first one I found was almost entirely hallucination. Thread:

Parts of Antioch's cemeteries were erratically excavated in the 1930s. I gathered that data and published it, most of it for the first time. If your research touches on Antioch's cemeteries, have fun exploring this piece and the supplementary appendices! ajaonline.org/article/exhu...

And now he is dropping late antique references? And correctly on top of that?

My latest for @hyperallergic.com is on Egyptian Blue—& a new study by Mishael Quraishi which prices out the Roman cost & manual labor needed to paint the “Blue Room” at Pompeii. Shout outs & thx: @hilarybeckertxny.bsky.social , @diffendale.bsky.social , @chapps.bsky.social, @valentinadl.bsky.social!

A LATE-BREAKING TT JOB..... Assistant Professor, Near Eastern Archaeology, University of Toronto Archaeology of the Levant (from south-central Türkiye to northwestern Saudi Arabia) during the Bronze and Iron Ages (3,000 to 500 BCE), universityaffairs.ca/search-jobs/...

Among the many delights in this preview is a reminder of the lovely days I got to spend in Naples. If anyone would like me to return to Naples to talk about literally anything, I shall gratefully accept your invitation.

My colleague @rhcraig.bsky.social is in the next issue of JAAR with a fascinating comparative study of Early Christian preaching manuals, African-American homiletics, and early Buddhist preaching: academic.oup.com/jaar/article...

An amazing review essay of Scheidel’s What is Ancient History and Padilla Peralta’s Classicisms and Other Phobias. planudes.medium.com/the-chains-t...

"H was approached about early retirement shortly after. He then requested a centennial professorship, which comes with an endowment used at the prof’s discretion...and a salary of $250k through 2012, at which point he would retire and drop legal claims against UT." thedailytexan.com/2026/02/10/f...

I feel...hope? about...our field?? What a boon for Biblical Interpretation.

The parents of a 7 year old, all of whom are in the process of applying for asylum, took their daughter to the ER when her nose wouldn't stop bleeding. ICE picked them up near the hospital and they are now in detention in Texas, presumably awaiting deportation. www.oregonlive.com/portland/202...

Here’s the report from KARE. The boy is five-year-old Liam Ramos.

I'll confess that I actually really enjoy peer review, despite the significant time investment it takes to do it well. For me (someone with stable employment at a SLAC), it's both a responsibility and a real opportunity to engage with the field.

happy publication day, @curtisdozier.bsky.social !

Of the endless possible topics for their final papers in my course, "The Bible and the Body: Gender, Race, Disability, Affect," a surprising number of my students chose to write about Paul. Where did I go wrong?? WHo will rescue me from this Canvas marathon of death?

My book, _An Exotic Apocalypse: Revelation and the Appropriation of Judaism in the Roman Empire_, is officially forthcoming with Penn State University Press. It'll be the inaugural book in their _Religions in the Ancient Mediterranean_ series.

Academics, I'd appreciate feedback on this: For a scholarly monograph, which should an author prioritize? a) Footnotes with full bibliographic entries on first use + "select bibliography" at the end of the book OR b) short citations in all the footnotes + full bibliography at the end of the book.

Amid the atmospheric river of academic austerity nonsense lately, I must admit that students presenting their final papers and excitedly discussing them with one another remains such a source of joy.

New issue of the Journal for the Study of the New Testament - Vol. 48, No. 2 (2025) journals.sagepub.com/toc/jnta/48/2 @sagepub.com @jaxhidalgo.bsky.social @ntright.bsky.social @clarissabreu.bsky.social @lhuber.bsky.social The Future of Revelation and Gender Studies

After reading Ignatius to the ROmans and Perpetua & Felicity this week, my class discussed the logics of ancient martyrdom. Students were ...uh... quite enthusiastic about contemporary parallels. The first time I think I've ever replied "no comment" to a student's question.

Proofs day for my chapter in _Listen to the Sibyl: The History, Poetics, and Reception of the Sibylline Oracles_ (ed. Olivia Stewart Lester et al)! The volume should be out in February via JSJSupp: brill.com/display/titl...

I swear I am incapable of remembering how many words I can read aloud per minute.

It’s an exercise in infantilization to do everything you can to prevent a student from taking a shortcut. Let them develop their own agency if they want to. Use your time as an educator to come up with assignments that are good on their own merits & not bc they flummox a probability machine.

Is cultural bankruptcy a term yet? www.thedailybeast.com/the-no-1-cou...

Disturbing news out of Auburn University, where the admin is pressuring professors to sign a statement saying they're complying with an "anti-DEI" law and TPUSA is holding a rally and trying to record classes. I hear faculty are terrified to sign, worried this is a pretense for mass firings.

"We seek early career scholars with a specialization in Religion and Health. The fellow may specialize in any contemporary religious or secular tradition and any methodological approach"

"a status as patron saints to middle-aged men with emotional impairments" well hey now who are we calling midle aged?

it’s officially book promo time! so, hey, i wrote this book; it comes out in a week! would you mind signal boosting and asking your library to buy it? if you’d like a copy, the code AUFLY30 will get you 30%off.

In a cautionary rebuke to the governing establishment, Ireland elects a leftist president who campaigned on economic justice at home and fury over the plight of Palestinians in Gaza abroad. www.washingtonpost.com/world/2025/1...

Dan-el Padilla Peralta already said this in his blurb but Maia's book really transformed me. Give yourself over to its lyrical powers!

As a student, professor, and colleague, I have often wanted this website. Eric has done us all a tremendous kindness by compiling into one place all the (often elusive or opaque) information needed to learn or teach several ancient languages using braille and describing the process with clarity.

🚨 Postdoc at UT Austin Religious Studies in Religion, Healing, and Magic in Late Antiquity (2 years)! utaustin.wd1.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/UTstaf...

ACLS statement against White House “compact”: THIS IS SOVIET SHIT

According to eyewitnesses, armed ICE agents dragged kids out of their beds in the middle of the night, zip tied them and put them in rented vans while raiding an * entire apartment building* on the South Side of Chicago. www.youtube.com/watch?v=vOXO...

my book_smoke & mirrors_ is out on oxford scholarship online. i have many feelings, mostly good! this was a difficult write for many reasons. so i hope you find something useful in it if you read it.