Category Archives: Religions of the Ancient Mediterranean blog archive (2005)

“Are we. . . to listen to her?”: The Gospel of Mary Magdalene (NT Apocrypha 7)

“Forgery” (deceit) or “pseudonymity” (admiration): Ehrman’s take (NT Apocrypha 12)

“Gnosticism” as a scholarly category and the study of the diversity of Christianity (NT Apocrypha 15)

“Going beyond all bounds to the realm of myth” in describing the “other”

“Marvels” yet again: Long-lost fountain of viagra

“Me and the Devil Blues”: Robert Johnson and the crossroads (Satan 5)

“The beginning of another world”: Apocalyptic expectations of re-creation (End 1.9)

“The head . . . proclaimed these verses”: Another (ancient) ghoulish story for halloween

“Who is this guy?”: The Gospel of Mark on the identity of Jesus (NT 1.3)

A ghost story (from Phlegon): Bouplagos stood up from among the dead (Bou!)

A guided tour of the heavens: The Ascension of Isaiah (NT Apocrypha 21)

A Hellenistic Twilight Zone episode (and a Jewish parallel story)

A History of Satan (Satan 1)

A second highly probable thing about the historical Jesus: Immersion by John the Baptizer

A very Jewish Jesus: The Gospel of Matthew’s portrait (NT 1.4)

Acts of John: Be thou like the bed-bugs (NT Apocrypha 5)

Alexander the Great (d. 323 BCE) and Christian origins (NT 1.2)

Aliens, Fallen Angels, and Heaven’s Gate

An early Christian schism over how to view Jesus’ flesh: Opponents of John the elder (Diversity 1.2)

An invitation from the god Sarapis: Banqueting with the gods

April D. DeConick’s The Thirteenth Apostle: What the Gospel of Judas Really Says

Associations of Immigrants: Thracians and the goddess Bendis near Athens

‘Come! Plunge the knife into the baby’: Tertullian’s not-so-subtle retort

Ballparking the historical Jesus – The importance of context

Bandits and their wild banquets: Lapiths and Centaurs

Banqueting under the protection of your gods

Banquets of the anti-associations: “They sacrificed a human being and partook of the flesh”

Beate Dignas, Economy of the Sacred in Hellenistic and Roman Asia Minor (2002)

Breaking news: Early Christians had no New Testament (NT 2.1)

Breaking news: Early Christians were impious atheists . . . (NT 3.2)

Christian Origins (NT 1.1)

Consulting the gods about your favourite blanket

Contexts of early Christianity (NT 3.1)

Demons and everyday life: Giving birth to monsters (Reformations 5)

Did the peasant Jesus ignore Judean ritual laws? Crossan’s answer

Early Christian Apocrypha and the historiography of early Christianity (NT Apocrypha 6)

Enter the serpent: Adam, Eve, and the Devil (Satan 8)

For the gods of the homeland: Immigrants from Beirut on a Greek island

Golden rule: Do unto others according to the “pagans”

Greco-Roman deities: Artemis of Ephesus 1

Greco-Roman deities: Artemis of Ephesus 2

Greco-Roman deities: Artemis of Ephesus 3

Human sacrifice and cannibalism again — oh, and sexual perversion too

Immigrants adrift in the Greco-Roman world?

Interpreting Judean scriptures in Paul’s time (NT 2.10)

Into the mystic: Meister Eckhart and medieval mysticism (Reformations 8)

It’s the end of the world as we know it: Paul’s apocalyptic worldview (NT 2.6)

Jesus said: Let the children. . . get lost? (NT Apocrypha 11)

Jesus’ descent into hell and Satan’s conversation with Hades (NT Apocrypha 3)

Judas Iscariot as the “good guy”?: The Gospel of Judas

Let’s talk about sects: Diversity in Second-Temple Judaism (NT 2.3)

Luke’s portrait of Jesus: Prophet Elijah and “Saviour” (NT 2.14)

Marcion’s Stranger God (also “strange”)

Menocchio on judgement and hell (Reformations 7)

Menocchio on the Synoptic problem (Reformations 6)

Menocchio, the peasant, on cheese and maggots (Reformations 4)

Mesopotamian gods, chaos-monsters, and the “combat myth” (Satan 2)

Multiple memberships in the world of the early Christians

Non-Christian sources for the study of the historical Jesus: Josephus and Tacitus on the execution of Jesus

Notes for Denison Goodspeed Lecture (April 16, 2018)

Oenomaus of Gadara on Detection of Deceivers and on Divination

On Sexual Indulgence: Paul and contemporaries like Musonius Rufus

Origins of an apocalyptic sect at Qumran: Teacher of Righteousness vs. Wicked Priest (End 1.6)

Other predecessors of Satan in Israelite religion and the Hebrew Bible (Satan 3)

Paintings of Pompeii 1: Villa of the Mysteries of Dionysos (Villa Item)

Paul and the situation at Galatia — again (NT 2.9)

Paul and the Super-apostles at Corinth (NT 2.8)

Paul, the Galatians, and circumcision (NT 1.6)

Peter (in the Pseudo-Clementines) on “false” passages in scripture (NT Apocrypha 4)

Peter vs. Simon Magus (alias Paul) in the Pseudo-Clementines (NT Apocrypha 17)

Phlegon’s Believe It or Not: Man undergoes sex change only to reverse it

Pompeii 2: Rivalries among associations and a riot at Pompeii

Post-apocalyptic films: From Escape from New York to Twelve Monkeys and beyond

Rebellious, fallen angels and the flood: 1 Enoch (Satan 4)

Reformations and Late-Medieval Christianity (1300-1650) course (Reformations 1)

Reformations: Continuity or disjunction? (Reformations 2)

Regional rivalries and humour in the Greco-Roman world (Jokes 2)

Rhetorical functions of Satan: From Babylon the whore to devilish super-apostles (Satan 7)

Salvation according to the “modern way” in the middle ages (Reformations 10)

Satanic conspiracies of the 1970s and 1980s (Satan 12)

Saviours or destroyers in space: Modern incarnations of ancient apocalyptic worldviews (End 1.7)

Sex and salvation in the Gospel of Philip

Sophia’s mistake: The Sophia of Jesus Christ and Eugnostos (NT Apocrypha 16)

Sophia’s repentance: The Apocryphon of John (NT Apocrypha 20)

Spoofing the apocalypse, or How I learned to stop worrying and love the bomb (End 1.8)

The “savage” Marcion: Ethnographic stereotypes in attacking “heretics”

The Gospel of Judas and ethnographic stereotypes: The priests “sacrifice their own children”

The brilliant student and the humiliated teacher again: Smart young Apollonius of Tyana (NT Apocrypha 8)

The Coptic Gospel of Thomas and an interesting online debate (NT Apocrypha 13)

The Cursing Infant Jesus: Ancient vs. modern sensibilities (NT Apocrypha 1)

The Fall of the temple of Artemis according to the Acts of John (NT Apocrypha 14)

The horrifying Nosferatu, personified plague and death (Satan 9)

The Jesus Ultimatum: Action and suspense in Mark’s gospel

The Little Drummer Boy and Protevangelium of James (NT Apocrypha 2)

The morphing Jesus: Christology in the Acts of John (NT Apocrypha 19)

The sacraments and divisions in the reformations (Reformations 9)

The times they are a changin’ endin’: Bob Dylan’s apocalypse (End 1.4)

Thecla, Tertullian, and controversies over women’s leadership (NT Apocrypha 18)

Thessalos’ travels and his “magical” cures

Those other (“pagan”) synagogues

Viewing the diversity of early Christianity through opponents (Diversity 1.1)

Visions of the End: Where did they come from? (End 1.1)

Was Paul a man of his time?: Contemporaries on the treatment of slaves (NT 2.11)

What crime did Ignatius of Antioch commit and who laid the charges?

What’s so magisterial about it?: Magistrates and the Swiss and German reformations (Reformations 11)

Worshiping the Beast / Honouring the Emperor