Notes on Contributors

David E. Aune is Walter Professor of New Testament and Christian Origins emeritus in the Department of Theology at the University of Notre Dame, Indiana, USA. His research has focused on the Graeco-Roman context of the New Testament and early Christianity. His publications include Prophecy in Early Christianity and the Ancient Mediterranean World (1983); The New Testament in Its Literary Environment (1987); The Westminster Dictionary of New Testament and Early Christian Literature and Rhetoric (2003); and Apocalypticism, Prophecy, and Magic in Early Christianity (2006).

Paul F. Bradshaw, an Anglican priest, is Emeritus Professor of Liturgy at the University of Notre Dame, Indiana, USA. The author or editor of more than twenty books on the subject of Christian worship and of over 120 essays or articles in periodicals, he is a former president of both the North American Academy of Liturgy and the international Societas Liturgica, and was also editor-in-chief of the journal Studia Liturgica from 1987 to 2005.

Joseph Bulbulia is McClauren Goodfellow Professor in Theological and Religious Studies at the University of Auckland, New Zealand. His research applies quantitative methods and evolutionary theory to understand how religion affects people and what it does in our societies. Since 2014, Bulbulia has served as co-editor of Religion, Brain & Behaviour. He is one of three curators of the New Zealand Attitudes and Values Study, a 20-year national longitudinal study of beliefs and values that is following over 18,000 New Zealanders. He is also an investigator for Pulotu, a free and open database of 116 Pacific cultures purpose-built to investigate the evolutionary dynamics of religion.

István Czachesz is Professor of Biblical Studies at the University of Tromsø in Norway. His research concentrates on the New Testament, Early Christian literature, and the Cognitive Science of Religion. He is co-chair of the Mind, Society and Religion: Cognitive Science Approaches to the Biblical World seminar of the Society of Biblical Literature, co-editor of the Studies on Early Christian Apocrypha Series, and book review editor for the Journal for the Cognitive Science of Religion. His books include Cognitive Science and the New Testament: A New Approach to Early Christian Research (2017), The Grotesque Body in Early Christian Discourse (2012), and Mind, Morality and Magic: Cognitive Science Approaches in Biblical Studies (edited with Risto Uro, 2013).

Douglas J. Davies is Professor in the Study of Religion and Director of The Centre of Death and Life Studies at Durham University, UK, trained in both social anthropology and theology. He is known internationally not only as a death-studies scholar, with work on traditional and woodland-ecological forms of burial and on cremation, but also for monographs on Mormonism. He has also worked on Anglicanism, on the interplay of anthropology and theology, and on the theology of death, most recently publishing Mors Britannica: Lifestyle and Death-style in Britain Today (OUP 2015). He is Oxford Doctor of Letters, Honorary Doctor of Theology in Uppsala, and Fellow of The Learned Society of Wales, of The Academy of Social Sciences, and of The British Academy.

Juliette J. Day is Docent and University Lecturer in Church History in the Faculty of Theology, University of Helsinki, Finland, and Senior Research Fellow in Early Christian Liturgy at Blackfriars Hall, University of Oxford, UK. Her research focuses on early Christian liturgy, especially that of Jerusalem/Palestine in late antiquity, and on the interpretation of ancient and contemporary liturgical texts. Significant publications include: The Baptismal Liturgy of Jerusalem (2007); Reading the Liturgy (2014), Early Roman Liturgy to 600 (edited with Marcus Vinzent, 2014) and A Guide to the Study of Liturgy and Worship (edited with Benjamin Gordon-Taylor, 2013).

Richard E. DeMaris is Senior Research Professor of New Testament Studies at Valparaiso University, USA, and has served as the Catholic Biblical Association Visiting Professor to the Pontifical Biblical Institute in Rome. He is a research associate of the Nordic Project on Ritual and the Emergence of Early Christian Religion and was a staff member of the Ohio State University Excavations at Isthmia, Greece, in the 1990s. His publications on ritual include Early Christian Ritual Life (edited with Jason Lamoreaux and Steven Muir, 2018), and The New Testament in Its Ritual World (2008).

Fanny Dolansky is Associate Professor of Classics at Brock University in St Catharines, Ontario, Canada, where she teaches Latin and Roman history. Her research primarily concerns the Roman family and its religious practices and the history of Roman childhood. She has published articles and chapters on several Roman domestic rituals and festivals, as well as on education, children’s toys and play, and a study of sexual violence in the second book of Ovid’s Fasti.

Brian P. Dunkle, SJ, is Assistant Professor at the Boston College School of Theology and Ministry, USA. He studies the history and theological literature of early Christianity and has translated the poetry of Gregory of Nazianzus (St. Vladimir’s, 2013) and sermons of Ambrose of Milan (Catholic University of America, forthcoming). He is author of Enchantment and Creed in the Hymns of Ambrose of Milan (2016).

David L. Eastman is Associate Professor of Religion at Ohio Wesleyan University, USA. He studies the development of Christianity within its broader social historical context, with a particular interest in the reception and reimagination of the lives of the apostles, martyrdom, and the cult of the saints. He is the author of two books, Paul the Martyr: The Cult of the Apostle in the Latin West (2011) and The Ancient Martyrdom Accounts of Peter and Paul (2015). He is also a contributor to the Society of Biblical Literature’s Bible Odyssey website, serves as the Book Review Editor for the Journal of Early Christian Studies, and is co-editor of the Inventing Christianity book series.

Christian A. Eberhart is Professor and Program Director of Religious Studies at the University of Houston, Texas, USA, and Chair of the Department of Comparative Cultural Studies. He graduated from Harvard University and has a doctorate in Hebrew Bible studies from the University of Heidelberg, as well as a Habilitation (second doctorate) in Early Christian literature from the University of Mainz. Eberhart is the founder and former chair of the Annual Conference Section ‘Sacrifice, Cult, and Atonement’ for the Society of Biblical Literature and the co-founder and co-convener of the ‘Hebrews’ research group for the Society of New Testament Studies.

Laura Feldt is Associate Professor of the Study of Religion with the Department of History, University of Southern Denmark, Odense. She has authored The Fantastic in Religious Narrative from Exodus to Elisha (2012) and edited Wilderness in Mythology and Religion: Approaching Religious Spatialities, Cosmologies, and Ideas of Wild Nature (2012) and other volumes. She has published on ancient literary myths, rituals, and monsters, from ancient Mesopotamia, the Hebrew Bible, and early Christianity.

Richard Finn, OP is a member of the Faculties of Theology and Classics, University of Oxford, UK, a Fellow of Blackfriars Hall, and Director of the Las Casas Institute for Social Justice.

Armin W. Geertz is Professor in the History of Religions at the Department for the Study of Religion, and former Jens Christian Schou Senior Fellow at Aarhus Institute of Advanced Studies, Aarhus University, Denmark. He is co-founder of the Religion, Cognition and Culture Research Unit at Aarhus. His main interests are the religions of indigenous peoples, especially North American Indians, cognitive theory in the study of religion, the neurobiology of religion, extreme religiosity, evolutionary theories of religion, and method and theory in comparative religions. Recent publications include The Emergence and Evolution of Religion: By Means of Natural Selection (written with J. H. Turner, A. Maryanski, and A. K. Petersen, 2017). He is senior editor of Advances in the Cognitive Science of Religion series, and senior editor of Journal for the Cognitive Science of Religion.

Anne Katrine de Hemmer Gudme is Professor (with special responsibilities) of Hebrew Bible Studies at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark. She has published several articles on ritual texts, practices and inscriptions in the Ancient Mediterranean and is the author of Before the God in this Place for Good Remembrance: A Comparative Analysis of the Aramaic Votive Inscriptions from Mount Gerizim (2013).

Angela Kim Harkins is Associate Professor of New Testament at the Boston College School of Theology and Ministry, USA. She was a Marie Curie International Incoming Fellow in the Department of Theology and Religion at the University of Birmingham, England (2014–2016), funded by the European Commission to undertake research on the Dead Sea Scrolls and Religious Experience. Harkins is the author of Reading with an “I” to the Heavens: Looking at the Qumran Hodayot through the Lens of Visionary Traditions (2012), and numerous articles and essays. Her research focuses on Second Temple and early Christian prayers and religious experience.

David G. Hunter holds the Cottrill-Rolfes Chair of Catholic Studies at the University of Kentucky, USA. He has published extensively in the field of early Christian studies, most notably on authors such as Augustine, Jerome, Ambrose, and Ambrosiaster. He is editor of the Oxford Handbook of Early Christian Studies (edited with Susan Ashbrook Harvey, 2008) and author of Marriage, Celibacy, and Heresy in Ancient Christianity (2007), Hunter also serves as Editorial Director of the translation series, The Fathers of the Church, published by The Catholic University of America Press, and is on the advisory board of numerous journals and book series.

Susan E. Hylen is Associate Professor of New Testament at the Candler School of Theology of Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, USA. She studies the social history of the Roman period and its effects on church practices pertaining to the leadership of women. She is the author of five books, including A Modest Apostle: Thecla and the History of Women in the Early Church (2015) and Women in the New Testament World (forthcoming).

Robin M. Jensen is the Patrick O’Brien Professor of Theology at the University of Notre Dame, Indiana, USA. Her teaching and research explore the intersections among Christian theology, liturgical practice, and material/visual culture. Significant publications include The Cross: History, Art, and Controversy (2017); Christianity in Roman Africa: The Development of its Practices and Beliefs (written with J. Patout Burns. 2014), and Living Water: The Art and Architecture of Ancient Christian Baptism (2011).

Vojtěch Kaše works as a teaching and research assistant in digital humanities at the Department of Philosophy, University of West Bohemia, the Czech Republic. He is concluding his doctoral studies under a cotutelle agreement between the University of Helsinki, Finland, and Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic. In Helsinki, he worked for the research project sponsored by the Academy of Finland and directed by Dr Risto Uro, entitled ‘Ritual and the Emergence of Early Christian Religion: A Socio-Cognitive Analysis’ (2013–2017). In Brno, he participates in the interdisciplinary research project GEHIR: Generative Historiography of Religion (2015–2018). His doctoral thesis applies cognitive theories of ritual to certain aspects of the development of early Christian meal practices.

Thomas Kazen is Professor of Biblical Studies at Stockholm School of Theology, Sweden. His research interests cover purity/impurity conceptions, the historical Jesus, and various ritual and apocalyptic issues. He attempts to integrate evolutionary, cognitive, and bio-psychological perspectives. Kazen is the author of numerous articles and books, including Jesus and Purity Halakhah (2002, corrected reprint 2010), Issues of Impurity in Early Judaism (2010), Emotions in Biblical Law (2011), and Scripture, Interpretation, or Authority? (2013).

Eva Kundtová Klocová is Research Fellow at LEVYNA Laboratory for Experimental Research of Religion, Masaryk University, the Czech Republic, where she conducts both lab and field experiments and collaborates on cross-cultural and interdisciplinary research projects. Her main interests are embodiment theories of ritual; theories of ritual communication; evolutionary theories of religion; the methodology of experimental research in humanities and social sciences; and cognitive theory in the study of religion. She directs research at the HUME Lab Laboratory for Experimental Humanities at Masaryk University.

John S. Kloppenborg is Professor and Chair of the Department for the Study of Religion at the University of Toronto and a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. His recent publications include Synoptic Problems: Collected Essays (2014), Attica, Central Greece, Macedonia, Thrace. Vol. 1 of Greco-Roman Associations: Texts, Translations, and Commentary (written with Richard S. Ascough, 2011), Q, The Earliest Gospel: An Introduction to the Original Sayings and Stories of Jesus (2008), The Tenants in the Vineyard: Ideology, Economics, and Agrarian Conflict in Jewish Palestine (2006), Excavating Q: The History and Setting of the Sayings Gospel (2000); and The Critical Edition of Q (written with James M. Robinson and Paul Hoffmann, 2000).

Lizette Larson-Miller is Huron-Lawson Professor at Huron University College of the University of Western Ontario in London, Canada. In addition to teaching in the areas of liturgical studies, history, and sacramental theology, she serves as the liturgical officer for the diocese of Huron, as chair of the International Anglican Liturgical Consultation, and as a member of several editorial boards in the field of liturgical publishing. Her most recent book is Sacramentality Renewed (2016).

Jacob A. Latham is Associate Professor of History at the University of Tennessee, USA. His first book is Performance, Memory, and Processions in Ancient Rome (2016).

Luther H. Martin is Professor Emeritus of Religion, University of Vermont and has been a Visiting Professor at Masaryk University, Brno, the Czech Republic. He is the author of The Mind of Mithraists (2015). He has also published widely in the area of cognitive theory and historiographical method, e.g. Deep History, Secular Theory (2014) and Past Minds: Studies in Cognitive Historiography (edited with Jesper Sørensen, 2011). A founder of the North American Association for the Study of Religion, he is now a member of the Honorary Board of its journal, Method & Theory in the Study of Religion. He is also a founding member of the International Association for the Cognitive Science of Religion and is co-Chair of the International Advisory Board of its Journal of the Cognitive Science of Religion, and a founding editor of the Journal of Cognitive Historiography.

Martti Nissinen is Professor of Old Testament Studies at the University of Helsinki, Finland. He is an expert on prophetic phenomena in the ancient Eastern Mediterranean, and his research interests include also gender issues (love poetry, homoeroticism, masculinity) in the Ancient Eastern Mediterranean. His books include Ancient Prophecy: Near Eastern, Biblical, and Greek Perspectives (in press), Prophets and Prophecy in the Ancient Near East (2003), Homoeroticism in the Biblical World: A Historical Perspective (1998), and References to Prophecy in Neo-Assyrian Sources (1998). He has edited several volumes and published a significant number of articles on topics related to prophecy, gender, and the history of ancient Near Eastern religion.

Pheme Perkins is Joseph Professor of Catholic Spirituality in the Theology Department of Boston College, USA, and an Associate Editor of the New Oxford Annotated Bible. Her research involves Johannine literature, New Testament theology, Gnosticism and the development of Christian theology in the second and third centuries. She is the author of many books and articles including Gnosticism and the New Testament (1993), Introduction to the Synoptic Gospels (2007), and 1 Corinthians (2012). She is a past president of the Catholic Biblical Association of America and chair of its executive board.

Anders Klostergaard Petersen is Professor for the Study of Religion at Aarhus University, Denmark. He is author and co-editor of several books as well as a large number of book chapters, articles, reviews, etc. on late Second Temple Judaism, Graeco-Roman religion and philosophy, early Christ-religion, and basic matters pertaining to method, theory, and philosophy of science with respect to historical studies. He has worked extensively with ritual theory mostly from Durkheimian, Rappaportian, semiotic and cognitive scientific perspectives. He is currently focusing on fundamental questions pertaining to biocultural evolution. Among his most recent and forthcoming publications are Ancient Philosophy and Religion: Religio-Philosophical Discourses Within the Greco-Roman, Jewish and Early Christian World (edited with George van Kooten, 2016), Contextualizing Rewritten Scripture: Wrestling with Authority (edited with Lieke Wijnia, 2017) and Divination and Magic and Their Interactions (edited with Jesper Sørensen, 2017).

L. Edward Phillips is Associate Professor of Worship and Liturgical Theology at Candler School of Theology, USA, and Coordinator of the Initiative in Religious Practices and Practical Theology for the Graduate Division of Religion, Laney Graduate School, at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, USA.

Rubina Raja is Professor of Classical Archaeology at Aarhus University, Denmark, and Director of the Danish National Research Foundation’s Centre of Excellence Centre for Urban Network Evolutions. She also heads the Palmyra Portrait Project. Her research interests include ancient religion, iconography and portraiture, as well as urban development of the ancient world and history of research. She has published extensively on urban development and the archaeology of Roman religion, including the 2012 monograph Urban Development and Regional Identity in the Eastern Roman Provinces as well as the volume The Archaeology of Religion in the Ancient World (edited with Jörg Rüpke, 2015). She is also an active field archaeologist and co-directs an international excavation project in ancient Gerasa in Jordan.

Rikard Roitto is Docent and University Lecturer of Biblical Studies, New Testament, at Stockholm School of Theology, Sweden. In his research, he integrates historical-critical methods with social, psychological, and cognitive sciences to understand early Christian texts and communities. His research interests include social identity, norms, rituals of penance and forgiveness, conflict resolution, and baptism in early Christianity. He has written several articles on ritual practices of reproof, repentance, penance, intercession for forgiveness, and reintegration of deviant group members in early Christianity.

Colleen Shantz is Associate Professor in the Faculty of Theology of St. Michael’s College and is cross-appointed to the Department for the Study of Religion, both in the University of Toronto, Canada. She researches aspects of experience in early Christianity (emotion, ritual, and religious experience), using both neurological and psychological studies to help to illuminate their functioning. She is co-editor of the Experientia volumes for the Society of Biblical Literature, which explore aspects of religious experience in early Judaism and Christianity.

Barry Stephenson is Associate Professor in the Department of Religious Studies, Memorial University, Canada. His research deals with religion and the arts, lived religion, and ritual studies. His publications include Ritual: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford University Press, 2015), Performing the Reformation: Public Ritual in the City of Luther (Oxford University Press, 2010), Veneration and Revolt: Hermann Hesse and Swabian Pietism (Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2009), and numerous book chapters and journal articles. He is the co-editor of the Oxford Ritual Studies Series.

Gerd Theissen is Professor Emeritus of New Testament Theology at the University of Heidelberg, Germany. He did his habilitation on early Christian miracle stories (1972), and has worked as an assistant at the University of Göttingen (1968–1969) and the University of Bonn (1969–1972), as a secondary school teacher (1975–1978), and Professor of New Testament Studies at the University of Copenhagen (1978–1980). His main research interests lie in the historical Jesus and the sociology, psychology, and theory of Early Christianity.

Daniel Ullucci is Associate Professor of Religious Studies at Rhodes College, USA. He works on the development of early Christianity and the interaction between early Christian groups and traditional Mediterranean religions. His past work examined the ritual of animal sacrifice and the process by which some early Christian groups came to reject this practice (The Christian Rejection of Animal Sacrifice, 2012). He has also written on sacrifice for Currents in Biblical Research. His current project draws on cognitive theory and network theory to redescribe the Christian discourse on ‘spiritual’ sacrifice in relationship to monetary giving by Roman elites.

Risto Uro is Senior Lecturer in New Testament Studies and chair of the BA programme in theology and religious studies at the University of Helsinki, Finland. He is Life Member of Clare Hall College, University of Cambridge. His research covers such areas as the Synoptic Gospels, the Nag Hammadi Library, and the social history of early Christianity. More recently, Uro has pioneered the development of ritual approaches to biblical studies. His particular interest is in cognitive theories of ritual. He led an international research project entitled ‘Ritual and the Emergence of Early Christian Religion: A Socio-Cognitive Analysis’ (2013–2017). His most recent monograph is Ritual and Christian Beginnings: A Socio-Cognitive Analysis (2016).

Jade B. Weimer holds a PhD from the Department for the Study of Religion at the University of Toronto, Canada. Her work examines the role of musical ritual in formulations of early Christian religious identities and explores the ways in which early Christian writers used musical practice as a means to demarcate the purported boundaries of orthodoxy and heresy. She is currently preparing her doctoral thesis for publication and teaching courses in religion as an adjunct faculty member at both the University of Manitoba and the University of Winnipeg.