Category Archives: Early Christian History

Review of Jonathan Bernier, Rethinking the Dates of the New Testament: The Evidence for Early Composition (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2022)

Posted on by

The purpose of this book is to explore the question: when were the twenty-seven books of the New Testament as well as 1 Clement, the Didache, the Epistle of Barnabas, and the Shepherd of Hermas composed? Jonathan Bernier’s answer to this query is that, aside from the Pauline epistles, many of these works were written some twenty to thirty years before most scholars conclude they were composed:

Early Christian WorkDate (all dates are in AD)
Matthew 45–49
Mark 42–45
Luke 59
John 60–70
Acts 62
Romans Winter of 56/57
1 Corinthians Early 56
2 Corinthians Late 56
Galatians 47–52
Ephesians 57–59
Philippians 57–59
Colossians 57–59
1 Thessalonians 50–52
2 Thessalonians 50–52
1 Timothy (if Pauline)63 or 64
1 Timothy (if not Pauline)60–150
2 Timothy (if Pauline)64–68
2 Timothy (if not Pauline)60–150
Titus (if Pauline)64–68
Titus (if not Pauline)60–150
Philemon 57–59
Hebrews 50–70
James Before 62
1 Peter 60–69
2 Peter (if Petrine) 60–69
2 Peter (if not Petrine)60–125
1 John 60–100
2 John 60–100
3 John Before 100
Jude Before 96
Revelation 68–70
1 Clement 64–70
Didache 60–125
Epistle of Barnabas70–132
Shepherd of Hermas 70–125

Bernier arrived at these dates from what he calls a synthetic treatment of early Christian history that “considers judgments on a disparate range of distinct yet densely interconnected matters and seeks to integrate them into a complex but unified synthesis.” The reason for this type of treatment is that the issue of dating these Christian works tends “to spiderweb into a need to treat one or more of” the above-mentioned works (1).   

Bernier divides his monograph into an Introduction, ten chapters, which form the bulk of the book, and a Conclusion. In the Introduction, he places his work into the history of scholarship on the question of dating the New Testament books, especially the work of James A. T. Robinson, Redating the New Testament (3–17), and defines its parameters, method, and goals (17–32). Bernier’s aim is to provide relative dates for the New Testament books and four other early noncanonical Christian works from the synchronization of events of early Christian history, the contextualization of these Christian literary sources, and from what we know of the authors of these works, what Bernier calls authorial biography (22–27). 

The first and second chapters of Rethinking focus on the Synoptic Gospels and Acts. Bernier accepts that Mark was composed first, Matthew second, and Luke and Acts (by the same author) third. His main foci of the first chapter is: (1) whether or not Jesus’s prediction of Jerusalem’s destruction requires a post AD 70 date (see Matthew 22:7; 24:1–2; 26:59–61; 27:51; Mark 13:1–2; 14:57–58; 15:38; Luke 19:41–44; 21:5–6, 20–28; 23:45) and (2) the dating of Luke-Acts. Bernier concludes that nothing in Matthew, Mark, or Luke demands a post AD 70 date. To the contrary, Jesus’s warning about the abomination of desolation and the events connected to it (Matthew 24:15–31; Mark 13:14–27) “are more fully intelligible before 70 than they are after” and the references to Jesus’s Second Coming (Matthew 16:28; 24:34; Mark 9:1; 13:30; Luke 9:27; 21:32) favor an earlier, rather than a later, date (66–67). Moreover, because Acts ends with Paul awaiting trial, it most likely dates before AD 62 (67). 

In the second chapter, Bernier contextualizes the Synoptic Gospels and examines biographical data from them, proposing that the lack of emphasis on the Gentile mission in Mark places it before the Jerusalem Council of Acts 15 (AD 48) and Matthew’s and Luke’s Gospels sometime after that but before AD 62 (because he dates Acts to AD 62 and places Matthew before Luke) (70–71). In addition, Marcan authorship of Mark and its connection to Peter in Rome is plausible and the “we-passages” of Acts suggest that the author was a companion of Paul (82–84). 

The third and fourth chapters of Rethinking examine the Johannine documents, John’s Gospel, 1–3 John, and Revelation. External evidence, namely P52, places John before AD 120, the prediction of Peter’s death (John 21:18–19) tends to support a time when the apostle was alive, Jesus’s comment about the author of John remaining alive until the Second Coming (John 21:22–23) does not require the Beloved Disciple to be dead at the time of composition, and Jesus’s references to the temple (John 2:19–22; 4:21) are intelligible before or after its destruction. However, Bernier finds that the mentioning of the pool of Bethesda as existing at the time of the Gospel’s composition suggests a date before AD 70 (102). Moreover, he argues that past reasons for a late date of John, namely Christology and the author’s supposed knowledge of Gnosticism, are flawed. He proposes that John’s Christology is as “high” as Paul’s and that John does not evince knowledge of second century AD Gnosticism (108). For these reasons, he dates John before AD 70. 

From external evidence, 1–3 John date before AD 150, AD 175, and AD 250 respectively. Internally, the Christology of 1–2 John suggests that these letters are not earlier than Paul’s epistles (115–17) and the most probable candidates for authorship of these missives are John the son of Zebedee or John the Elder, both of which lived in the first century AD (118). Concerning Revelation, Bernier hypothesizes that the beasts of Revelation 13:1–18 make more sense before Nero’s death in AD 68 than after, and the references to the Jerusalem temple and Jerusalem in Revelation 11:1–2, 13 are more intelligible before AD 70 than after (123). Internally, the author’s concern for food offered to idols makes more sense between AD 40 and 60 (when early Christians were debating under what circumstances Gentiles could enter their movement), the references to Rome as Babylon cannot exclude a pre-AD 70 date, and that the work probably dates between AD 68 and 70 (126).

In chapters five and six, Bernier tackles the Pauline corpus. The former chapter discusses Pauline authorship—Bernier accepts the undisputed letters, that Paul contributed to Ephesians, Colossians, and 2 Thessalonians, and he offers possible date ranges that include and exclude Pauline authorship for the Pastorals (1–2 Timothy and Titus)—and the importance of Acts for dating Paul’s letters (133–43). In chapter six, he attempts to date and provide provenances for each epistle in the corpus. In the process, he places Galatians as the first extant Pauline letter, the Prison Epistles in Caesarea Maritima in the late AD 50s, and the Pastorals to the AD 60s if genuine, but between AD 60 and the mid-second century AD if they are not (179–82).

Chapters seven and eight discuss the Catholic Epistles, less 1–3 John. In chapter seven, Bernier examines Hebrews and James. Concerning the former, the reference to the temple (Hebrews 10:1–3) is more intelligible if the temple were still standing and the mentioning of Timothy places the work after this individual entered Christian ministry around AD 50 (193). Hebrews 2:3 and the reference to the author and his audience hearing the Gospel from those who heard it from Jesus presupposes an author who has not heard the earthly Jesus. All these data place the missive between AD 50 and 70 (194–95). Decisive external and internal evidence to date the letter of James is lacking. However, it’s probable author, James the brother of Jesus, places it before AD 62 (209). 

Chapter eight of Rethinking considers 1–2 Peter and Jude. Concerning 1 Peter, Bernier notes that decisive external and internal data to help date this missive are lacking. However, because Peter composed it, it dates between AD 60 and 69 (223). Second Peter must postdate the Pauline letters (2 Peter 3:15b–16) and this epistle is the strongest candidate for a pseudonymous letter in the New Testament (229). Like 1 Peter, there is not much data to date Jude. However, it was probably written by the historical Jude who probably died at the end of Domitian’s reign. Therefore, the letter probably predates AD 96. 

In chapters nine and ten, Bernier examines the noncanonical writings,1 Clement, the Didache, the Epistle of Barnabas, and the Shepherd of Hermas. Chapter nine considers the first two. Concerning 1 Clement, Bernier contends that the work’s reference to the deaths of Peter and Paul (1 Clement 5:4–7) call for a date after AD 64 and that 1 Clement is more intelligible before AD 70 than after (250–51). With regard to the Didache, Bernier surmises that the author(s) knew Matthew’s Gospel (which he dates between AD 45 and 49), that the focus on the inclusion of Gentiles (Didache 6:2–3) “parallels” the concern of the Christian movement between AD 40 and 60, and that the references to traveling teachers, prophets, apostles, bishops, and deacons (Didache 11–13) are closer to AD 40 through 60 than the second century AD (258). In chapter ten, Bernier concludes that the Epistle of Barnabas (especially 16:3–4) postdates the temple’s destruction in AD 70 but no later than AD 132, the beginning of the Bar Kokhba Revolt (270–71), and that the Shepherd of Hermas is more intelligible near the end or after the apostolic generation than before (274). 

Finally, in his Conclusion, Bernier summarizes his work and calls for more attention to synthetic methods of dating early Christian and Jewish texts.

This monograph is a tour de force of synthetic logic and reasoning, which has caused me to reconsider my own dating of some New Testament documents and the “orthodoxy” of dating of these early Christian texts found in most New Testament introductions. In particular, Bernier has piqued my interest in exploring further the relationship between the temple’s destruction and the dating of the New Testament documents. In short, do the references to this event in the Gospels necessitate a post AD 70 dating? I look forward to thinking with Bernier’s work to answer this question and I wholeheartedly recommend it to anyone interested in the dating of the New Testament documents! Click here to purchase the book directly from Baker and here from Amazon.

The destruction of the temple (1867) by Francesco Hayez now in the Gallerie dell’Accademia in Venice, Italy

I appreciate Baker Academic for providing me with a review copy of this work, which in no way influenced my review of it!   

Oldest Christian Artifact in Northern Europe and St. Paul’s Letter to the Philippians!

Posted on by

Archaeologists from Goethe University (Frankfurt, Germany) announced this week the discovery of a small silver amulet, 3.5 cm, outside Frankfurt. The artifact contains an 18-line Latin inscription indicating that its wearer was a third century AD Christian. The amulet, along with an incense burner and a clay jug, was found in the grave of a man dating between AD 230 and 270 and specifically under his chin. Therefore, the object must have worn around the man’s neck, at least for his burial but probably during his life, too. The inscription contains references to St. Titus, the Trisagion, the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, and a reference to St. Paul’s Letter to the Philippians 2:10-11a.

All pictures taken from https://arkeonews.net/frankfurt-silver-inscription-archaeologists-unearth-oldest-christian-artifact-north-of-the-alps/.

The significance of the find is that it provides the earliest concrete evidence to date for Christianity in Northern Europe (for more, see Goethe University’s press release by clicking here). What interests me is the inscription’s references to Philippians 2:10-11a–“so that a Jesus’s name every knee in heaven, on earth, and under the earth might bow and every knee might confess” (my translation)–and to St Titus.

According to the announcement, the epigraph reads:

(In the name?) of St. Titus.
Holy, holy, holy!
In the name of Jesus Christ, Son of God!
The lord of the world
resists to the best of his [ability?]
all seizures(?)/setbacks(?).
The god(?) grants well-being
Admission.
This rescue device(?) protects
the person who
surrenders to the will
of the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God,
since before Jesus Christ
bend all knees: the heavenly ones,
the earthly and
the subterranean, and every tongue
confess (to Jesus Christ)” (translation from Dr. Markus Scholz, see here).

The announcement did not contain the epigraph’s Latin text so it is unclear if this is a direct quotation or an allusion to the verses from Philippians. Nevertheless, this exciting discovery is evidence for the use of this letter of St. Paul’s as well as at least knowledge of one or more of the following letters, 2 Corinthians, Galatians, 2 Timothy, and Titus, which mention St. Titus (2 Cor 2:13; 7:6, 13, 14; 8:6, 16; 12:18; Gal 2:1, 3; 2 Tim 4:10; Tit 1:4, in an early Christian community outside modern-day in Frankfurt!

Another Possible Epigraphic Reference to Lucius Sergius Paullus

Posted on by

In 1895, the German epigrapher Ludwig Bürchner visited the Greek island of Samos to record inscriptions, which he placed in a notebook that currently is in the archive of the Inscriptiones Graecae at the Berlin Academy (Germany). One epigraph that Bürchner noted was a Latin epitaph that may refer to Lucius Sergius Paullus; the most probable candidate for the Cypriot proconsul whom Paul and Barnabas encountered on Cyprus (Acts 13:7).

This funerary inscription remained unknown to most of the scholarly world until 1964, when another German epigrapher, Günter Dunst published all known Latin epigraphs from Samos, which were known at that time.[1] In the process, he pointed out the existence of a certain first century AD “grave inscription” (Grabinschrift), which refers to “a slave of L(ucius) Ṣẹrgius Paullus” (eines Skiaven des L(ucius) Ṣẹrgius Paullus) named “Gemellus” (Gemellus).

Some historians have accepted Dunst’s identification. Professor Werner Eck (Cologne University, Germany) comments on the epitaph:

Vermutlich ist dies der in der Apostelgeschichte bezeugte Sergius Paulus; sein Sklave war vielleicht auf der Fahrt nach dem Osten auf Samos gestorben. Er erhielt ein eigenes Grab und der volle Name des Herrn sagte, dass der Verstorbene kein Niemand gewesen ist.

Presumably, this is the Sergius Paulus attested in the Acts of the Apostles; perhaps his slave died on Samos on his journey to the East. He received his own tomb and his master’s full name testified that the deceased was not a nobody.[2]

In 2003, Prof. Klaus Hallof (Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities, Germany) edited all the Samian inscriptions and revisited the epigraph in question. After consulting Bürchner’s notebook, he reproduced the following text, restoring the name Lucius Sergius Paulinus, not Lucius Sergius Paullus:

Gemello ∙ L(uci) ∙
Ṣẹrgi ∙ Paul–
[i]n[i ∙] servo
– –m ∙ f(aciendum) c(uravit) ∙ Dro–

“For Gemellus, the slave of L(ucius) Sergius Paulinus, who made this . . . Dro . . .”[3]

I have been unable to examine the epigraph or see a picture of it. Presumably, the inscription is lost and Prof. Hallof informs me that the squeeze that Bürchner made is of poor quality. Therefore, it remains debatable whether or not the stone refers to the member of the Sergii Paulli whom Paul and Barnabas probably met.

Nevertheless, Alexander Weiß proposes that even if the epitaph refers to Lucius Sergius Paulinus, he still may be associated with Lucius Sergius Paullus:

denn Paulinus wäre wohl ein Freigelassener oder ein Nachkomme eines Freigelassenen dieser Familie.

For Paulinus is probably a freedman or a descendant of a freedman of this family.[4]

Weiß may be correct. Hopefully, future epigraphic discoveries will shed light on this epigraph and the presence of Lucius Sergius Paullus or Lucius Sergius Paulinus on Samos and his possible connection to early Christianity.

[1] Günter Dunst, “Die lateinischen Inschriften von Samos,” Helikon 4 [1964]: 284

[2] Werner Eck, “Sklaven und Freielassene von Römern in Iudaea und den angrenzendenzenden Provinzen,” Novum Testamentum 55 (2013): 19

[3] IG XII.6 no. 711

[4] Alexander Weiß, Soziale Elite und Christentum Studien zu ordo-Angehörigen unter den frühen Christen (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2105), 73.

New Volume on Ancient Villages and the Rise of Christianity

Posted on by

Recently, I received my complimentary copy of The Village in Antiquity and The Rise of Early Christianity, edited by Alan Cadwallader, James R. Harrison, Angela Standhartinger, and L.L. Welborn.

This work contains eighteen essays by seventeen different scholars ranging from specialists on second millennium BC Egypt to historians of early Christianity, Greco-Roman epigraphers, and Greco-Roman archaeologists. The scope of this volume is immense, as it examines villages and aspects of village life in Pharaonic and Roman Egypt, ancient Israel, Roman Palestine, Roman Galatia, Roman Asia, Roman Macedonia, Roman Achaea, and Roman Italy. The overall thesis of The Village in Antiquity is that the scholarly consensus that early Christianity was a largely urban phenomenon is fundamentally flawed and in need of revision. Those interested in ancient villages in general and the spread of early Christianity in them in particular will benefit from this great collection of essays. Thanks to Alan, Jim, Angela, and Larry for their hard work in producing it and for including me among its contributors!

Material Culture and Why I Use It To Reconstruct Early Christianity

Posted on by

This week I had the pleasure of being part of a panel on the use of documentary sources or material culture as I prefer to call it and the interpretation of the Bible at the annual meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature, which due to COVID 19 was online this year. My task in the panel was to address how I determine a source to be documentary or material, what method I use to interpret documentary sources or material culture, and what value these sources have in the interpretation of the Bible. 

As a historian of early Christianity who focuses on the Greco-Roman period of history, I determine a source to be documentary or material if it restores the human touch to the inquest of history. Thus, I define documentary sources as archaeological, papyrological, numismatic, statuary, inscriptional, and ceramic (i.e., pottery) evidence that individuals living in antiquity produced. In essence, almost anything that does not consist of written literature that scribes copied throughout the centuries. 

Let me unpack what I mean. Archaeological evidence comes from controlled, scientific excavations—whether they be large like the city of Philippi (see Image 1) or small like a cave near Khirbet Qumran (see Image 2)—conducted by qualified archaeologists. Papyrological evidence consists of ancient written documents on papyri or ostraca (i.e., pottery sherds). This dataset is diverse and contains private letters, reports, census, and much more (see Image 3).

Image 1: Forum of Philippi, Greece (© Wikimedia Commons: Marsyas)
Image 2: Cave 4 from Khirbet Qumran, Israel (© Wikimedia Commons: Effi Schweizer)
Image 3: Bill of sale for a donkey from Houghton Library, Harvard University (© Wikimedia Commons)

Numismatic evidence consists of coins that local cities and empires produced (see Image 4). These sources are diverse too and contain texts and images that help to reconstruct cults, magistrates, and customs of individual Greek cities. Statuary evidence are images that ancient artists created and that individuals viewed, which were erected throughout Greco-Roman cities (see Image 5). For a discussion of some of the famous statues of mainland Greece, see the second century CE traveler Pausanias and his Description of Greece. 

Image 4: Coin from Philippi, Greece depicting statue base of the Deified Julius crowning the Deified Augustus (© Wildwinds.com)
Image 5: Statue of Augustus from Thessalonica, Greece (© Livius.org)

Inscriptions are messages engraved, incised, or scratched on durable materials that imperial and local governments as well as individuals set up in conjunction with monuments (see Image 6). There are myriads of surviving Greco-Roman inscriptions (close to half a million) and this lot, like papyri, is diverse and consists of official decrees, funerary inscriptions, magical curses, and much more. Finally, ceramic evidence is pottery that individuals made, distributed, and used (see Image 7). Pottery is one of the surest chronological dating methods on an archaeological excavation because of the diversity of pottery in time and place and the constant changes in its appearance and shape.

Image 6: Gate of Mazaeus from Ephesus (© D. Clint Burnett)
Image 7: So-called scroll jars which is a distinctive pottery type to Qumran (© Wikimedia Commons: Public Domain)

To say that these sources are variegated is an understatement. Each type of documentary source has its method of interpretation with limitations and possibilities. As a historian of earliest Christianity, I try not to prefer one over the other (even though I am partial to inscriptions, see Image 8 and click here to purchase my book on inscriptions) because I am convinced that historians must use all these documentary sources to reconstruct antiquity. However, I confess to the ire of my friends and colleagues who are ceramicists that I find pottery the least exciting of documentary sources with which to work. In my reconstruction of history, I endeavor to use all these sources for one common goal: to provide what I call narrative glimpses, always incomplete, into the lives of ancient individuals. Thus, I am convinced that each documentary source that I use has a life of its own and a story to tell, which I labor to reconstruct. 

Image 8: My book on inscriptions!

In the end, every narrative glimpse that I reconstruct will be incomplete due to the fragmentary nature of the source. However, I am an optimist and something is always better than nothing. To reconstruct a given narrative glimpse, I approach whatever documentary source with which I am working contextually. That is, I interpret each datum in light of its archaeological context. Consider the following example. 

In the winter of 1855, a statue base with an inscription was discovered on the Greek island of Calymnus (on the western coast of modern-day Turkey, see Image 9) among the partial remains of a temple dedicated to a personification of Apollo, Delian Apollo, who appears to have been Calmynus’s patron deity. The inscription (see Image 10) dates to 37 CE and says: 

Image 9: Calymnus or Kalymnos is marked on this Google Map

 The citizen-body of the Calymnians dedicated (a statue of) Gaius Caesar [G]e[rma]nicus beside Apoll[o] [De]lian the Guardian of Calymnus because of his piety . . . (Ὁ δᾶμος ὁ Καλυμν[ί]ων συνκαθιέρωσε Ἀπόλλ[ω]νι [Δ]αλίῳ 
Καλύμ[ν]ας μεδέοντι άϊον Καίσαρα Γερ[μα]νικὸν εὐσεβ[είας ἕνε][κεν . . . . ]; my translation).

M. Segre, “Tituli Calymnii,” Annuario della scuola archeologica di Atene e delle missioni Italiane in oriente 22-23, (1944-1945) [1952]: no. 105
Image 10: Caligula’s temple sharing inscription (© Segre, ‘Tituli Calymnii”)

Because of the findspot of this inscription and a Greek term (συνκαθιέρωσε) and a linguistic construction (Ἀπόλλ[ω]νι [Δ]αλίῳ Καλύμ[ν]ας μεδέοντι, a dative of place) used in it, I have argued elsewhere that this statue base is of a temple sharing image.[1] That is, a statue of a benefactor that is set up inside the temple of a deity next to their cultic image. In this case, the benefactor is Caligula and the temple is that of Delian Apollo. During the Hellenistic and Roman periods, Greek kings and Roman emperors were in the best position to offer benefactions to Greek cities and thus there is more evidence that monarchs shared Greek temples than any other individual from antiquity. When rulers shared temples, it was to acknowledge the ruler’s piety and beneficence and to showcase that the deity in whose temple the ruler’s image was erected approved of and supported their reign. Provided that I have identified correctly this inscription from Calymnus, we can reconstruct the following narrative glimpse. 

Caligula provided some concrete benefaction for Calymnus, which the city interpreted as stemming from his piety. Hence, the mentioning of “because of his piety” (εὐσεβ[είας ἕνε][κεν . . .]) in the inscription. To show appreciation for this gift, the citizen-body met to decide how best to honor the emperor. Someone must have put forth the motion, which was subsequently ratified, that Caligula should share the temple of Delian Apollo and that his statue should be set up next to that the deity’s, which indeed occurred. This short narrative glimpse, however, is incomplete. We neither know the benefaction for which Calymnus granted Caligula temple sharing with Delian Apollo, details of other divine honors that the emperor received, nor if and when the island polity removed him from being Delian Apollo’s temple sharer. Nevertheless, without this inscription and archaeological site from Calymnus, we would never have known that Caligula has a relationship with this tiny, insignificant island. 

In my estimation, documentary sources such as this inscription and archaeological site from Calymnus are invaluable for reconstructing the social history of the early Roman Empire and thus the context of the spread of nascent Christianity for two main reasons. First and foremost, they are direct witnesses of the past that provide windows into the lives of non-elite men. Almost all surviving Greek and Latin literature are either by elite men or those who were patronized by them, much of which focuses on major events that and persons who changed the course of history in the Mediterranean world and the ancient Near East. In short, they focus on history from above. What is more, this literature has been passed down through the copying, editing, and sometimes alteration of scribes until the invention and widespread use of the printing press. Such is not the case with documentary sources where we can construct the social history of non-major cities such as Calymnus and where we can find letters and inscriptions composed by non-elite men, women, children, and slaves and sometimes archaeological sites where such individuals lived and worked. In short, documentary sources provide us with a history from below. Such information often supplements and sometimes contradicts surviving Greco-Roman literature. 

Second, documentary sources are contextual data allowing historians to contextualize early Christian documents in a way heretofore unrealized. Archaeological sites, inscriptions, coins, statuary, pottery, and the occasional papyri finds outside Egypt provide evidence for local cults, customs, law-codes, and traditions. This information has the potential to help us contextualize more concretely early Christian texts whose provenance and addressees are certain. To provide an example, I have been able to show in my contextual work that contrary to the oft-repeated false claim that the Roman emperor was hailed as Lord (kyrios) during Paul’s tenure as the apostle to the Gentiles (from the early 30s to the early 60s CE) inscriptions and coins from Philippi, Corinth, and Thessalonica indicate that the denizens of those cities did not acclaim the emperor with this title.[2] For all these reasons, I endeavor to employ documentary sources, as much as literary sources, in any research project that I undertake. My hope is that my fellow New Testament scholars will do likewise!   

[1] D. Clint Burnett, Christ’s Enthronement at God’s Right Hand and Its Greco–Roman Cultural Context, Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für die neutestamentliche Wissenschaft 242 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2021)

[2] D. Clint Burnett, Studying the New Testament Through Inscriptions: An Introduction (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2020); “Imperial Divine Honors in Julio–Claudian Thessalonica and the Thessalonian Correspondence,” Journal of Biblical Literature 139 (2020): 567–89; reprinted in The First Urban Churches 7: Thessalonica, edited by James R. Harrison and Larry L. Welborn (Atlanta: SBL Press, forthcoming); “Divine Titles for Julio–Claudian Imperials in Corinth,” Catholic Biblical Quarterly 82 (2020): 437–55; Christ’s Enthronement.