Social History of Formative Christianity and Judaism

Call For Papers: This unit is planning four sessions for the 2020 annual meeting.1) This open session is interested in papers on making marriage religious in late antiquity (i.e. Christianizing or Judaizing marriage) and inviting discussion on documentary, ritual, and other under-studied sources. 2) Building on the 2019 annual meeting sessions’ discussions of literacy among ordinary people in antiquity, this invited session on Rethinking Literacy and Conversations across Cultures in Antiquity asks how thinking about religions in their regional context—one that extended across imperial borders between the Roman and Iranian worlds—helps us understand ancient Jews, Christians, Manicheans, polytheists and others. Moreover, how does decentering canonical texts and centering practice illuminate religions and their permeable boundaries? Using the synagogue of Dura Europos as a case study, contributors to this panel demonstrate what we can learn about ancient literacy, pedagogy, and cross-cultural interactions in antiquity. 3) An invited session centers on the study of Samaritans: the last three decades have seen a surge of scholarship on the Samaritans. From the study of the Persian Period, to the Dead Sea Scrolls, to Rabbinic literature and beyond, interest in the Samaritans has grown exponentially. Despite this upswing of attention, scholarly contributions have tended to remain within their own subfields, without broader conversation about the (potentially radical) consequences of Samaritan inclusion in the study of the Bible, late antiquity, Jewish Studies and the study of Religion generally. 4) Co-sponsored with the Exile (Forced Migrations) in Biblical Literature unit, this invited session is inspired by and responds to Jennifer Barry’s newly published book Bishops in Flight: Exile and Displacement in Late Antiquity (UC Press 2019) and invites contributors to reflect more broadly on its relevance to research on exile and migration in Late Antiquity.

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