photos of the three respondents, Athalya Brenner-Idan, Steed Davidson, and Meredith Warren
Athalya Brenner-Idan is the author of many books on the Hebrew Bible and feminist biblical criticism, including The Israelite Woman: Social Role and Literary Type in Biblical Narrative (1985, 2014), and I Am: Biblical Women Tell Their Own Stories (2004). She is a former president of the SBL and the editor (with Gale Yee) of the Text @ Contexts series.
Steed Davidson is interested in how empire shapes the Hebrew Bible and its reading. He is the author of Empire and Exile: Postcolonial Readings of Selected Texts of the Book of Jeremiah (2013), the forthcoming Prophetic Otherness: Constructions of Otherness in Prophetic Literature (2021), and other works on prophetic and historical texts through the lens of postcolonial and other critical theories.
Meredith J.C. Warren researches how food and taste function in ancient texts. She is the author of Food and Transformation in Ancient Mediterranean Literature (2019), which analyzes “hierophagy,” transformational other-wordly eating, and My Flesh Is Meat Indeed: A Nonsacramental Reading of John 6:51–58 (2015), which examines Jesus’ commandment to consume his flesh and blood alongside fictional accounts of human sacrifice.
This PhD Showcase continues the series’ aim of sharing the doctoral research of recent PhD graduates. The event features Dr. Nathan Shedd’s work the beheading of John the Baptist in the gospels and their early reception history. The conversation will focus on the memory of violence in early Christianity and the communicative impact of John’s severed head. Nathan’s presentation will discuss Mark 6:16-29 and Herod Antipas’ masculinity in context of John’s beheading. Registered participants will receive a handout the day before the event.
Discussants
gallery includes photos of the thee discussants, Kelly Murphy, Rafael Rodriguez, and Sarah Rollens
Kelly J. Murphy is a scholar of the Hebrew Bible and its reception, with a particular interest in gender and economics. She is the author of Rewriting Masculinity: Gideon, Men, and Might (2019) and is currently working on a book on how the Bible has been used in discourses about poverty over time, and a new project on the trope of severed heads in the Bible and its reception.
Rafael Rodriguez is the author of several books on the New Testament and social memory, including of Structuring Early Christian Memory: Jesus in Tradition, Performance, and Text (2010), Oral Tradition and the New Testament: A Guide for the Perplexed (2014), The So-Called Jew in Paul’s Letter to the Romans (2016), and Jesus Darkly: Remembering Jesus with the New Testament (2018).
Sarah E. Rollens researches Christian origins and social theory, with a focus on Q and the Synoptic Gospels. She is the author of Framing Social Criticism in the Jesus Movement: The Ideological Project in the Sayings Gospel Q (2014), and is currently working on a study of violent imagery in early Christian texts.
This two-part conversation on “reading” and interpreting authoritative texts asks the question, “Who’s Reading Who?”—that is, who is doing the “reading” of authoritative texts and whose readings are prioritized?
FEATURING a draw for a 200£ book credit from Bloomsbury open to graduate students and adjunct instructors! Come to both parts and enter your name twice for a chance to win!
The first session will focus on interpretive authority and authorities. From constitutional originalism to historical criticism of the Bible, certain modes of reading and interpreting texts are deemed “objective” or “neutral.” Speakers will analyze these modes of reading and interpretation, drawing attention to their pitfalls and the ways in which they elide or silence other ways of approaching authoritative texts.
The second session will look at forms of “reading” that critique dominant forms of interpretation. How do scholars engage with authoritative texts in order to critique and provide alternatives to dominant, so-called objective forms of reading? What are some available community-based practices of textual interpretation, and what does ethical “reading” look like in these communities of accountability? What can practices like chanting or singing tell us about how different people approach authoritative texts?
The BRANE Collective is thrilled to launch a new series, the Primary Text Laboratory, with an inaugural event on Apocryphon of James! This series brings together a panel of scholars to examine closely a single text from different perspectives, in an open conversation on any aspect of its interpretation. Our aim is to share infrequently studied texts with a wider audience and to provide a space for interested researchers to chat about the texts they love!
Have a primary text you’d like to discuss? Propose a Primary Text Lab! Proposals from scholars at all stages, including graduate students, are warmly welcome. The BRANE Collective can help facilitate, including connecting with scholars you’d like to invite. See the Event Toolkit to get started!
For this first event in the series, we have a panel of scholars with diverse approaches on Apocryphon of James. This fascinating text is not so well known as some of its Nag Hammadi peers, but it offers a distinct opportunity to discuss topics such as reception of Jesus tradition, genre designations of texts about Jesus, and early portrayals of the apostles. Come join us for an exciting discussion and learn more about this text’s contribution to our understanding of early Christian literature.
Wednesday, March 31 2:00 – 3:30pm Eastern time (US)/7:00-8:30pm UK time
A link to the text will be sent with your registration confirmation.
Discussants:
Karen L King, Kimberly Bauser McBrien, Sarah Parkhouse, Elizabeth Schrader, Kristine Toft Rosland
Gallery contains images of Codex I, papyrus p. 1, https://ccdl.claremont.edu/digital/collection/nha; Karen L. King; Kim Bauser McBrien; Sarah Parkhouse; Kristine Toft Rosland; and Elizabeth Schrader
Karen L. King is trained in comparative religions and historical studies and is the author of books and articles on the diversity of ancient Christianity, women and gender studies, and religion and violence. Her particular passion is studying recently discovered literature from Egypt, including the Gospel of Mary, the Apocalypse of James, the Gospel of Philip, and the Secret Revelation of John.
Kim Bauser McBrien is interested in the New Testament and early Christianity, with a focus on the role of memory in the preservation and production of tradition in the canonical gospels and extra-canonical literature of the first three centuries. Her work specialises in Apocryphon of James, including themes of social memory and pseudepigraphy. She also has published on biblical studies pedagogy in the undergraduate classroom.
Sarah Parkhouse researches early Christianity, and has particular interests in the second century, diversity within religious thought and practices, and how locality shapes and is shaped by religion. She has written a book and articles on ‘dialogue gospels’ and has just started a project on Coptic literature and artefacts within the Egyptian landscape.
Kristine Toft Rosland works on the Nag Hammadi Codices and Egyptian monastic material from the fourth and fifth centuries. She specialises in the Apocryphon of John, its textual variants, and its Christology. Her methodological interests also include fan fiction, and she has published on its application to the relationship between Apocryphon of John and Genesis.
Elizabeth Schrader’s research interests include textual criticism, the New Testament Gospels, the Nag Hammadi corpus, Mary Magdalene, and feminist theology. Her article “Was Martha of Bethany Added to the Fourth Gospel in the Second Century?” was published in the Harvard Theological Review. Her work has been featured by both the Daily Beast and Religion News Service.
A handout that will introduce participants to Dr. Lindenlaub’s dissertation will be sent out to all registrants before the meeting.
This event will be live captioned by a professional CART provider.
Discussants:
Chris Keith is the author of many books on early Christian text production, literacy, and book culture, including The Gospel as Manuscript: An Early History of the Jesus Tradaition as Material Artifact (Oxford University Press, 2020), Jesus against the Scribal Elite: The Origins of the Conflict (Baker Academic, 2014), Jesus’ Literacy: Scribal Culture and the Teacher from Galilee (T&T Clark, 2011), and The Pericope Adulterae, the Gospel of John, and the Literacy of Jesus (Brill, 2009).
Anne Kreps researches early Jewish and Christian scriptural practices, with a particular interest in Valentinian and Gnostic Christianities. Her forthcoming monograph, The Crucified Book, examines early Christian theories of sacred writing, centering often-neglected non-canonical material. She is also interested in New Religious Movements, particularly those who look to the Essenes of antiquity to shape group identity.
Hugo Méndez is interested in Johannine literature, ritual uses of biblical texts, and early Christian martyr cults. His forthcoming book is entitled Inventing Stephen: The Early Cult of the Protomartyr in Late Ancient Jerusalem, and he is now working on a new book that challenges the ways scholars have used biblical texts to reconstruct Christianity in the first and second centuries, with a focus on rethinking the so-called “Johannine community.”
image shows an assortment of beers and liquors, a coffee cup with Yiddish insults, and two bags of junk food.
Register here for BRANE’s Low Tolerance Happy Hour, Dec. 5, 1pm Pacific/4pm EST/9pm UK! Join the cutting edge of scholarship, mixology, and indigestion! Let’s share our unwise conference drink or food choices. As always, inclusive of gender, of alcohol and/or caffeine tolerance, and of ten-dollar hapax legomena.
Got FOMO? Missing casual chatting, planning, debriefing, beaming, or kvetching at the conference, whether or not you’re registered this year? Invite your friends to stand in the virtual coffee line with you, or drop by to see if anyone’s already there. We’ll announce a few set times, but feel free to register once and line up whenever you want!
The BRANE Collective is proud to open our new PhD showcase series with a spotlight on Daniel O. McClellan’s 2020 dissertation, “Deity and Divine Agency in the Hebrew Bible: Cognitive Perspectives.”
Dan will discuss his new research with Debra Scoggins Ballentine, Mark McEntire, Brian Rainey, and Jen Singletary. Join us!
Debra Scoggins Ballentine focuses on ancient Israelite and Judean history, religion, and literature, viewing literary and material data as social artifacts that reflect engagement with their contemporary contexts. She is the author of The Conflict Myth and the Biblical Tradition (2015), which analyzes how ancient authors adapted traditional mythic themes of divine combat to further specific political and theological ideologies.
Mark McEntire‘s research interests span the entire Hebrew Bible, engaging concepts from death and violence, through urban life, to the reception of biblical themes in popular music. Two of his recent books, Portraits of a Mature God (2013), and An Apocryphal God: Beyond Divine Maturity (2015), trace the narrative development of the divine character in the Hebrew Bible and beyond.
Brian Rainey is interested in the comparative study of the Hebrew Bible and ancient Near East, including anthropological, sociological and cognitive theories of “ethnicity” and their usefulness for the study of ancient societies; Assyriology; biblical mythology and Christian theology; and the development of “monotheism” in the ancient world. He is the author of Religion, Ethnicity, and Xenophobia in the Bible: A Theoretical, Exegetical and Theological Survey.
Jen Singletary researches the languages, religions, and cultures of the ancient Near East (including Israel and the Hebrew Bible), especially scholarly rivalry and collaboration in the ancient Near East in the second and first millennia BCE, as well as concepts of deity in a comparative perspective. Her forthcoming book is entitled Objects of Their Trust: Manufactured Objects, Divine Qualities, and Attributes as Deities in the Ancient Near East.
A precirculated paper will follow for all registered participants
Recent scholarship has emphasized the fluidity of canonical boundaries in the late Second Temple period, how “authoritative scriptures” at the time could include more than just biblical texts. But such accounts still presume the existence of a very specific sort of “scriptural” relationship to texts—whether non-biblical or biblical—in particular, an often dubiously attested authority structure and instructional setting. These developments raise a fundamental question: What is Scripture? Is the idea of Scripture a natural, inevitable component of human religious experience? Do people relate to sacred texts according to regular, defined patterns?
In this workshop, David Lambert will address these questions based on a chapter, “What is Scripture? An Introduction to Biblical Assemblages,” from a forthcoming book project, in conversation with John Barton, Laura Carlson Hasler, and Chontel Syfox.
David Lambert is the author of How Repentance Became Biblical: Judaism, Christianity, and the Interpretation of Scripture. His work aims to identify tendencies present in the history of biblical interpretation in order to elucidate “untimely” aspects of the Hebrew Bible itself. He is currently working on a book project, “Is Bible Scripture? Reassembling the Biblical in Ancient Judaism and Beyond.”
John Barton‘s research interests have included the prophets, of the Hebrew Bible, the biblical canon, biblical interpretation, Old Testament theology, as well as biblical ethics. He is the author of many books, including Oracles of God: Perceptions of Ancient Prophecy in Israel after the Exile, What is the Bible?, Ethics in Ancient Israel, and most recently, A History of the Bible: The Story of the World’s Most Influential Book.
Laura Carlson Hasler‘s research focuses on the relationship among texts, monumental spaces, and cultural power in Jewish antiquity. She is particularly interested in how Hellenistic Jews used texts to adopt and adapt symbols of empire to facilitate recovery. She is the author of Archival Historiography in Jewish Antiquity, which argues that the form of Second Temple Jewish texts like Ezra-Nehemiah and the Greek editions of Esther are read best as archives.
Chontel Syfox’s research focuses on the reception and interpretation of the Hebrew Bible in Second Temple Jewish literature, with an emphasis on using gender-nuanced interpretative methods to better understand the developing literary character of these texts and the world behind them. Her forthcoming monograph (under contract with Brill) explores the construction of gender in the Book of Jubilees’ depiction of the biblical matriarchs.
The BRANE Collective is excited to announce a new series showcasing the work of newly minted PhDs in conversation with established scholars. Our first two events are coming up:
Daniel O. McClellan “Deity and Divine Agency in the Hebrew Bible: Cognitive Perspectives” Discussants: Debra Scoggins Ballentine, Mark McEntire, Brian Rainey, and Jen Singletary Thursday, Oct. 22 4:00 pm – 5:30 pm EST please register here for the link and pre–circulated material
Julia Lindenlaub “The Beloved Disciple as Interpreter and Author of Scripture in the Gospel of John” Discussants: Chris Keith, Anne Kreps, and Hugo Méndez Thursday, Dec. 17, 9:00 am PST/12 noon EST/5:00 pm UK registration information to follow
Stay tuned for scheduling information and join us to celebrate and discuss the work of 2020 PhD graduates!
Do you know a 2020 PhD whose work should be celebrated and and discussed in this series? Let us know by filling out this form. We can help make it happen!
Bible and Religions of the Ancient Near East Collective 