Robin M. Jensen, The Cross: History, Art, and Controversy, Harvard University Press, Cambridge – London, 2017. The cross stirs intense feelings among Christians as well as non-Christians. Robin Jensen takes readers on an intellectual and spiritual journey through the two-thousand-year evolution of the cross as an idea and an Read more…
Dirk Rohmann, Christianity, Book-Burning and Censorship in Late Antiquity: Studies in Text Transmission, Baylor University Press, 2017. Only a small fraction of ancient literature survives—less than one percent, estimates reveal. While the reasons vary, it is an irony that Christianity, often regarded as responsible for the proliferation and spread of Read more…
Michael P. Naylor, Complexity and Creativity: John’s Presentation of Jesus in the Book of Revelation, Gorgias Press, 2018. Within the book of Revelation, John provides a unique and fascinating portrait of Jesus. This monograph examines John’s interaction with imagery from his cultural context (Roman emperor worship), from the key Read more…
Boaz Cohen, Jewish and Roman Law: A Comparative Study (Vol. 1-2), Gorgias Press, 2018. Classical rabbinic law grew up in the shadow of the Roman empire, and must be understood in relationship to its legal legacy. Yet few, especially in the anglophone world, have mastered both corpuses—the remarkable Boaz Cohen Read more…
Kirill Dmitriev & Isabel Toral-Niehoff (ed.), Religious Culture in Late Antique Arabia: Selected Studies on the Late Antique Religious Mind, Gorgias Press, 2017. This volume explores aspects of religious culture in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Arabian Peninsula across Late Antiquity – the period of dynamic and historically crucial developments, Read more…
Philip Francis Esler (ed.), The Early Christian World, (2nd ed.), Routledge, London – New York 2017. Since its publication in 2000, The Early Christian World has come to be regarded by scholars, students and the general reader as one of the most informative and accessible works in English on the Read more…
A. Edward Siecienski (ed.), Constantine: Religious Faith and Imperial Policy, Routledge, London – New York 2017. Constantine: Religious Faith and Imperial Policy brings together some of the English-speaking world’s leading Constantinian scholars for an interdisciplinary study of the life and legacy of the first Christian emperor. For many, he Read more…
Jason Moralee, Rome’s Holy Mountain: The Capitoline Hill in Late Antiquity, Oxford University Press, New York 2018. Rome’s Capitoline Hill was the smallest of the Seven Hills of Rome. Yet in the long history of the Roman state it was the empire’s holy mountain. The hill was the setting of Read more…
Drew W. Billings, Acts of the Apostles and the Rhetoric of Roman Imperialism, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge – New York 2017. Acts of the Apostles is normally understood as a historical report of events of the early church and serves as the organizing centerpiece of the New Testament canon. In Read more…
Andrea Carandini, Paolo Carafa (ed.), The Atlas of Ancient Rome: Biography and Portraits of the City (2 vols.), translated by Andrew Campbell Halavais, Princeton University Press, Princeton, Oxford 2017. The Atlas of Ancient Rome provides a comprehensive archaeological survey of the city of Rome from prehistory to the early Read more…