As a history educator for over thirty years, the reasons for studying history are never far from my consciousness. When I taught in high school, I knew that virtually every day I went into the classroom I needed to be able to articulate why my students needed what I was teaching. Earning a PhD in history and teaching at the university level has only deepened and broadened my understanding of what history is, and its value. Above all, history is... Read more
Have you ever read something about history that stopped you in your tracks? That shook up your assumptions about the past? It happens to me all the time. I still remember reading the epilogue of Ward Holder’s Calvin and the Christian Tradition (Cambridge University Press, 2022) on a plane ride a few years back, when I was stunned to read about John Calvin’s interpretation of 1 Corinthians 11:13-15. The passage in question comes in the context of Paul arguing that... Read more
I am continuing my series on Lost and Found Scriptures. I believe I have a scholarly find in this area, a first, and I am putting it out here to see if anyone can help me confirm this. For several decades now, the topic of alternative and non-canonical gospels has been a very lively field of scholarly endeavor: we think of such authors as Karen King and Elaine Pagels. Normally, attention focuses on the so-called Gnostic Gospels, like those found... Read more
As my grant (and time in Norway) wrapped up this spring, I spent a lot of time being bad at communication in public. Let me explain. I had two conferences (one in Paris, one in Oslo) where I was able to go present my work. These were really rewarding experiences, and I learned a lot from the other presenters and received positive and helpful engagement with my own work. But along with the learning and engagement came reminders that my... Read more
This month I’ve been visiting secret places. I study English Catholic families in the seventeenth century who were trying to pass their faith on to their children in the face of persecution. My husband and I traveled to the North of England to track down the stories, secret communities, and ways of living that these obstinate Catholics left. I visited schools that they covertly formed in private homes for the local Catholic children, went to ancient holy sites of furtive... Read more
My present work concerns the massive discoveries of early Christian texts, documents, and scriptures in the years between roughly 1870 and 1930 – that is, a generation or two before the famous finds at Nag Hammadi and Qumran in the 1940s. I have blogged a lot about this in the past, but I don’t think I ever asked one question, which was: why then? Why did that whole process not start even earlier? Today I want to offer an explanation,... Read more
I have been posting on texts and scriptures as they are lost and found, with an emphasis on gospels and sacred writings. Today, I want to complicate the story by asking how “lost” some texts ever get to be, when they might actually be hiding right in front of us, in plain sight. What made me think of this was the devious story of a well-regarded ancient writing called the Apology, by the second-century Christian philosopher Aristides. This was in... Read more
We are living in a New Gilded Age. Or, so said Paul Krugman in 2014 as he reviewed economist Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the Twenty-First Century. In the dozen years since, nothing seems to suggest the name is less applicable. The gap between the top 1% and the 99% is almost unfathomable. From superyachts, superstar wedding singers, and half-a-million bottle service, to space tourism, apocalypse bunkers, and the Mar-A-Lago face, the obscene spectacles of mega-wealth grow by the day. Where... Read more
Homer is having a bit of a moment. The controversy around Christopher Nolan’s creative decisions in his forthcoming Odyssey, the recent discovery of an Egyptian mummy buried with some lines from the Iliad, and of course, posts from my esteemed Anxious Bench co-contributors Philip Jenkins, have shown that the ancient poet remains relevant to our culture. Of course, we might ask ourselves why this is the case: is it the power in his words and meter? Is it the complicated... Read more
I have been posting about the loss and rediscovery of venerated ancient texts, including Scriptures. In a textual-based religion, such as Christianity, it is easy to attach a special significance to such rediscoveries, to suppose that they are destined to play a special Providential role at a special moment. Traditionally, what carried more weight than gospels? Therefore, clearly, a lost gospel must be a very special thing. But by the same token, it is tempting for anyone wishing to make... Read more
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