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Meeting Program Units

2022 Annual Meeting

Denver, Colorado

Meeting Begins11/19/2022
Meeting Ends11/22/2022

Call for Papers Opens: 1/19/2022
Call for Papers Closes: 3/18/2022

Requirements for Participation

Rhetoric and Early Christianity


Program Unit Type: Section
Accepting Papers? Yes

Call For Papers: The Rhetoric and Early Christianity (formerly Rhetoric and the New Testament) Section fosters research centered on the arts of persuasion, broadly conceived, as they intersect with the study of Early Christian sources and worlds. This section premises that, given our current socio-political climate and discursive landscape, the study of rhetoric and early Christian Literature is as highly relevant as ever. For the 2022 annual meeting, we plan to host three sessions, centered on several themes. The first, a joint session with the Biblical Performance Criticism section, will be comprised of invited papers that compare methodologies in both Biblical Performance Criticism and Rhetorical Criticism. In this session, we will consider how changes in both subfields over the last 10 years have produced new opportunities for insight and development. Likewise, the session envisions live performance of texts with complementary analysis of the insights gained through these two critical methods of interpretation. For our second session, we seek proposals that take up the rhetoric of criminalization in the New* Testament and other early Christian literature – including martyrdom narratives. For this session, we are especially interested in exploring how early Christian texts discussed Jesus-followers’ relationship to imperial and local authorities that policed, arrested, jailed, tried, sentenced, and executed them. Finally, for our third session we invite proposals dealing with various aspects of the intersection of the study of rhetoric and the study of early Christianity. In this open session, all approaches will be considered. However, we encourage papers that explore the interplay of ancient and modern discourses, contexts, and deployments. Additionally, proposals that focus on the question of why the study of rhetoric and early Christianity matters ‘now’ will be particularly welcome.

Program Unit Chairs

Lillian I. Larsen
Mark D. Given

Propose a Paper for this Program Unit

If you are a SBL member, you must login before you can propose a paper for this or any other session. Please login by entering your SBL member number on the left in the Login box.

For all other persons wanting to propose a paper, you must communicate directly with the chair of the program unit to which you want to propose. Chairs have the responsibility to make waiver requests, and their email addresses are available above. SBL provides membership and meeting registration waivers only for scholars who are outside the disciplines covered by the SBL program, specifically most aspects of archaeological, biblical, religious, and theological studies.

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