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Those going SBL, here’s a panel not to miss: a review session of Sarah Bond’s book Strike (Yale, 2025), with responses by Jen Quigley, Richard Last, Larry Welborn, and Laura Nasrallah. Should be a great conversation! Many thanks to Agnes Choi for taking the lead on organizing.

Looking forward to this year’s ARROW sessions at SBL, which all look terrific! Grateful to the unit for allowing me and Jaimie Gunderson to plan a session on “Problematizing “Christianization” in Rough Cilicia and Isauria,” with a handful of colleagues who don’t usually make it to this conference.

🚨 We’re hiring for another Postdoc position in my department: Religion and Health (one year). Please share with anyone who might be interested!

The Department of Religious Studies is seeking to appoint a two-year postdoctoral fellow with a specialization in Religion, Healing, and Magic in Late Antiquity. Please visit tinyurl.com/2k8bmyz5 for the job posting and more information. Review of applications will begin Oct. 31, 2025.

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

A fantastic overview by UT-RS PhD student Niketas Belovorodov of the conference’s keynote by Petra Kuppinger on Muslims’ neighborhood interactions in Stuttgart and Ted Gordon’s feature presentation on Black churches and the racial demography of Austin. Thanks, Niketas!

Today at 4pm Central Time: Dr. Meghan Henning on “Manufacturing Martha’s Madness: Enslavement, Anxiety, and Distraction in Luke 10:38–42.” In-person at UT in RLP 1.302 and streaming on Zoom (follow link below). All are welcome! cla.utexas.edu/mes/events/m...

Hardly even satire! I wrote a piece a couple yrs ago on “second-amendment exegesis” among political influencers and bible “scholars” alike. Happy to share by email if anyone wants a copy. academia.edu/resource/wor...

This is not the first time I have had to watch loved ones survive (un)natural disasters, and I feel ill equipped to speak to the #lawildfires. But here are a few musings on the uses and abuses of the #bible that contributed to and emerge from this disaster: religiondispatches.org/the-los-ange...

🚨 Very pleased to announce the publication of a new article I had the privilege of co-authoring with Lara Boleslawsky. “Antisemitic Charisma: A Critique of Max Weber’s Interpretations of Paul, Jews, and Charisma…” was just published online in MTSR. Happy to send a copy if you don’t have access!

Many, many congrats to Rikki Liu, UT PhD student, for receiving the 2024 Brooten award for a terrific paper on “Scripting Pain, Distributing Affect: P.Mich.inv. 1190 and the Gendered Labor of Ritual”!! sbl-site.org/assets/pdfs/...

Great news: *Revelation and Material Religion in the Roman East: Essays in Honor of Steven J. Friesen* just turned a year old, which means it’s now fully open access! You can download the whole book or individual chapters for free at this link: www.taylorfrancis.com/books/oa-edi...

The Social-Scientific Criticism of the NT unit has planned some awesome sessions at the SBL Annual Meeting Nov. 23-26. If you’re heading to San Diego, I hope you can make it to some of these!!

If you watched the movie, don't know your secutor from your scutum, but still want to know what the film took from history (and which bits it changed,) then here's my guide to sifting the facts from the fictions in Gladiator II. Spoiler free!!

Looking forward to catching up with friends and colleagues at ASOR in Boston this week! Particularly excited for our Antiochia ad Cragum (hybrid) sessions this coming Saturday!

With #SBLAAR24 right around the corner, I've updated the starter pack of ancient religion scholars to reflect our swelling ranks. Let me know if you'd like to be added or removed. go.bsky.app/9y592Bk

JSHJ’s last issue of the year is officially out! Editorial by yours truly, followed by some other great pieces! Enjoy! brill.com/view/journal...

If you’re interested on how and why Spiritual Warfare impacts politics, check out the people listed in my starter pack! go.bsky.app/DGGNg2P

My new Open Access article! For some reason it felt relevant to discuss the Bible and the LONG history of leaders telling stories about how things used to be great before moral, ethnic, urban, gender, and family corruption bigly happened. #EduSky #Election #Bible journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10....

The Social-Scientific Criticism of the NT unit has planned some awesome sessions at the SBL Annual Meeting Nov. 23-26. If you’re heading to San Diego, I hope you can make it to some of these!!

Job alert‼️ My department is hiring a tenure-track Assistant Professor of Ancient Mediterranean Religions. Here’s the posting: apply.interfolio.com/153089

We're hiring again! "Research expertise that complements the department's current strengths, particularly in the areas of global antiquities, comparative approaches to classics, or classical reception." Details/portal at (only CV/letter 1st round): apply.interfolio.com/150732

Job alert‼️ My department is hiring a tenure-track Assistant Professor of Ancient Mediterranean Religions. Here’s the posting: apply.interfolio.com/153089

A day of flight delays is a little less frustrating with such fabulous new late antiquity books on hand—and that’s saying a lot! 🤩

A necessary yet sobering look at the relationship between the alt-right and antiquity on social media from @workingclassicists.bsky.social. I’m contributing something adjacent to this conversation on their site soon so keep an eye out! 👀 www.workingclassicists.com/post/the-ant... #classicsbluesky

New issue of Religion in the Roman Empire Vol. 10, No. 1 (2024) www.mohrsiebeck.com/heft/religio... Religion at Work @mohrsiebeck.bsky.social @tonyk.bsky.social

The LIFE OF THECLA is up on the W&S website and taking orders!!!! wipfandstock.com/978166674640...

Thrilled to share that Religion in the Roman Empire 10.1, “Religion at Work: Jewish and Christian Experiences of Labour in the Roman World,” has been published and is fully open-access! Please check out these terrific contributions and share widely! www.mohrsiebeck.com/en/journal/r...

Grateful for this important, courageous statement on lessons of history from my friend Martha Newman, UT History Chair. Calling for de-escalation of police violence on campus, not criminalizing student speech, mitigating mutual suspicions. Please read & share. liberalarts.utexas.edu/history/news...

UT Austin faculty: Please consider signing ASAP. Thank you. #academicsky #highered tinyurl.com/4tf6wpjk

Exciting “Workshop on Late Antiquity” talk Wed. 3/20, 5pm on UT’s campus if you’re in the Austin area (free and open to all, but unfortunately not hybrid): Dr. Reyhan Durmaz on “Public Exegesis in Late Antiquity Through the Lens of the Qur'ān” ⁦‪

New open-access volume! Alaya Palamidis and Corinne Bonnet, eds., What's in a Divine Name? Religious Systems and Human Agency in the Ancient Mediterranean www.degruyter.com/document/doi...

It is my pleasure to announce the program for ResDiff5 (March 22, 2024), an annual digital conference addressing inequity in classics, which I co-organize with Joseph Romero. Keynote: Dominic Machado (@dominicmachado.bsky.social). resdifficiles.com/res-diff-5-2...

Still a few weeks to submit proposals for the SBL Annual Meeting. The SSCNT unit enthusiastically welcomes proposals for two thematic sessions and an open session! See call below.

Planning to present at SBL in San Diego this Nov.? Please consider submitting a proposal to one of the Social-Scientific Criticism of the New Testament’s sessions! Don’t hesitate to reach out to me with any questions!

If you’re in the Austin area, this UT Late Antiquity Workshop this week with our own Dr. Katherine Taronas on the color blue in late antiquity should be fascinating!

At a time when Israel is plausibly charged with genocide, what do the Rabbinic sources actually say about a secular state in Israel? Anti-Zionism may be more Kosher than you think. religiondispatches.org/despite-the-...

Finally starting to work through this paradigm-shifting new commentary. My future students will be reading parts about the “radically genderqueer Lamb,” which makes you think differently about the whole text. Congrats to @lhuber.bsky.social on this phenomenal book, and to all others involved too!

I look forward to discussing Prophecy, Divination, and Magic with some of my colleagues whose work has inspired me! It is an honor to be included in this group. liberalarts.utexas.edu/mes/events/p...

SBL-goers, The Social-Scientific Criticism of the New Testament & Social Sciences and the Interpretation of the Hebrew Scriptures units have each planned exciting sessions on the state and future of social scientific approaches in our fields. Please join us if you can!