New Books in Christian Studies

How did Psalm 110:1 become so widely used as a messianic prooftext in the New Testament and early Christianity? Part of the explanation may be related to the first century’s Greco-Roman political and religious context.Tune in as we speak with Clint Burnett about his recent book Christ’s Enthronement at God’s Right Hand and its Greco-Roman Cultural Context (de Gruyter, 2020).D. Clint Burnett holds a PhD in biblical studies from Boston College, where he is a visiting scholar. He focuses on interpreting early Christianity in light of the material culture of the Greco-Roman cities in which it was established. Clint is also a priest in the Anglican Church in North America, serving Old North Abbey in Knoxville, TN.Michael Morales is Professor of Biblical Studies at Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary, and the author of The Tabernacle Pre-Figured: Cosmic Mountain Ideology in Genesis and Exodus (Peeters, 2012), Who Shall Ascend the Mountain of the Lord?: A Biblical Theology of Leviticus (IVP Academic, 2015), and Exodus Old and New: A Biblical Theology of Redemption(IVP Academic, 2020). He can be reached at mmorales@gpts.edu Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/christian-studies

In Prophets and Prophecy in the Late Antique Near East (Cambridge UP, 2023), Jae Han investigates how various Late Antique Near Eastern communities—Jews, Christians, Manichaeans, and philosophers—discussed prophets and revelation, among themselves and against each other. Bringing an interdisciplinary, historical approach to the topic, he interrogates how these communities used discourses of prophethood and revelation to negotiate their place in the world. Han tracks the shifting contours of prophecy and contextualizes the emergence of orality as the privileged medium among rabbis, Manichaeans, and 'Jewish Christian' communities. He also explores the contemporary interest in divinatory knowledge among Neoplatonists. Offering a critical re-reading of key Manichaean texts, Han shows how Manichaeans used concepts of prophethood and revelation within specific rhetorical agendas to address urgent issues facing their communities. His book highlights the contingent production of discourse and shows how contemporary theories of rhetoric and textuality can be applied to the study of ancient texts.Jae Han is Assistant Professor in Religious Studies and the program for Judaic Studies at Brown UniversityMichael Motia is a lecturer in the Religious Studies and Classics Department at the University of Massachusetts Boston Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/christian-studies

There have been Christians in the Holy Land for two thousand years; “we are the first church,” says Father Firas Abedrabbo who is from Bethlehem and works in Ramallah. He studied law in France and speaks excellent English and spoke with me about his experience as a priest in Palestine (the West Bank) during the Gaza War. We talk politics and history, but we also talk about how people in the middle of a war can see God’s love and His participation in our daily lives, even (or perhaps especially) in our darkest hours.I am grateful for Josh Del Colle of South Dakota for this episode suggestion and for arranging the introduction. Website of the Latin Patriarchate in Jerusalem Father Firas’s webpage. Almost Good Catholics episodes with Father Piotr Żelazko in Jerusalem: [Part 1] Fr. Piotr Żelazko on Almost Good Catholics, episode 71: Live from Israel: Catholics in the Holy Land Today [Part 2] Fr. Piotr Żelazko on Almost Good Catholics, episode 73, starting at 55 minutes after my interview with Jay Richards: Darwinian Accident or Divine Architect? The Debate between Natural Selection and Intelligence Design [Part 3] Fr. Piotr Żelazko on Almost Good Catholics, episode 79, The Ground is Crying out to God: Live from Jerusalem Part 3 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/christian-studies

Although we often think of friendship today as an indisputable value of human social life, for thinkers and writers across late mediaeval Christian society friendship raised a number of social and ethical dilemmas that needed to be carefully negotiated. On Amistà: Negotiating Friendship in Dante’s Italy (University of Toronto Press, 2023) analyses these dilemmas and looks at how Dante’s strategic articulations of friendship evolved across the phases of his literary career as he manoeuvred between different social groups and settings.Dr. Elizabeth Coggeshall reveals that friendship was not an unequivocal moral good for the writers of late mediaeval Italy. Instead, it was an ambiguous term to be deployed strategically, describing a wide range of social relationships such as allies, collaborators, servants, patrons, rivals, and enemies. Drawing on the use of the language of friendship in the letters, correspondence poems, dedications, narratives, and treatises composed by Dante and his interlocutors, Dr. Coggeshall examines the way they skillfully negotiated around the dilemmas that friendship raised in the spheres of mediaeval Italian literary society. The book addresses instances of inclusivity and exclusivity, collaboration and self-interest, hierarchy and equality, and alterity and identity. Employing literary, historical, and sociological analysis, On Amistà presents a genealogy for the innovative and tactical use of the terms of friendship among the works of late mediaeval Italian authors.This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose forthcoming book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/christian-studies

In The Jesuits: A Thematic History (Institute of Jesuit Sources, 2023), Claudio Ferlan provides an exploration of the tradition of the Society of Jesus. Instead of focusing solely on the Society’s historical milestones and changes, Ferlan traces the continuity of key Jesuit themes over time—covering education, mission, social engagement, and more. The book moves between different periods and places, emphasizing how core Jesuit themes have retained their essence despite profound transformations in the Society and the world. Whether the reader is a scholar in Jesuit studies or simply interested in the Society’s history, the book offers an analysis of one of the enduring religious orders of the Roman Catholic Church.This book is part of the Jesuit Sources imprint, IJS Studies: Research on Jesuits and the Society of Jesus.Roberto Mazza is currently a visiting lecturer at Northwestern University. He is the host of the Jerusalem Unplugged Podcast and to discuss and propose a book for interview can be reached at robbymazza@gmail.com. Twitter and IG: @robbyref Website: www.robertomazza.org Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/christian-studies

What can we know about the everyday experiences of Christians during the fourth, fifth, and sixth centuries? How did non-elite men and women, enslaved, freed, and free persons, who did not renounce sex or choose voluntary poverty become Christian? They neither led a religious community nor did they live in entirely Christian settings. In this period, an age marked by “extraordinary” Christians—wonderworking saints, household ascetics, hermits, monks, nuns, pious aristocrats, pilgrims, and bishops—ordinary Christians went about their daily lives, in various occupations, raising families, sharing households, kitchens, and baths in religiously diverse cities. Occasionally they attended church liturgies, sought out local healers, and visited martyrs’ shrines. Barely and rarely mentioned in ancient texts, common Christians remain nameless and undifferentiated.Unfinished Christians: Ritual Objects and Silent Subjects in Late Antiquity (U Pennsylvania Press, 2024) explores the sensory and affective dimensions of ordinary Christians who assembled for rituals. With precious few first-person accounts by common Christians, it relies on written sources not typically associated with lived religion: sermons, liturgical instruction books, and festal hymns. All three genres of writing are composed by clergy for use in ritual settings. Yet they may also provide glimpses of everyday Christians’ lives and experiences. This book investigates the habits, objects, behaviors, and movements of ordinary Christians by mining festal preaching by John Chrysostom, Cyril of Jerusalem, Gregory of Nyssa, and Romanos the Melodist, among others. It also mines liturgical instructions to explore the psalms and other songs performed on various feast days. “Unfinished,” then, connotes the creativity and agency of unremarkable Christians who engaged in making religious experiences: the “Christian-in-progress” who learns to work with material and bring something into being; the artisans who attended sermons; and, more widely, the bearers of embodied knowing. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/christian-studies

Greg Jarrell's book Our Trespasses: White Churches and the Taking of American Neighborhoods (Fortress Press, 2024) uncovers how race, geography, policy, and religion have created haunted landscapes in Charlotte, North Carolina, and throughout the United States. How do we value our lands, livelihoods, and communities? How does our theology inform our capacity--or lack thereof--for memory? What responsibilities do we bear toward those who have been harmed, not just by individuals but by our structures and collective ways of being in the world?Abram and Annie North, both born enslaved, purchased a home in the historically Black neighborhood of Brooklyn in the years following the Civil War. Today, the site of that home stands tucked beneath a corner of the First Baptist Church property on a site purchased under the favorable terms of Urban Renewal campaigns in the mid-1960s. How did FBC wind up in what used to be Brooklyn--a neighborhood that no longer exists? What happened to the Norths? How might we heal these hauntings? This is an American story with implications far beyond Brooklyn, Charlotte, or even the South. By carefully tracing the intertwined fortunes of First Baptist Church and the formerly enslaved North family, Jarrell opens our eyes to uncomfortable truths with which we all must reckon. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/christian-studies

In 1341 in Aragon, a Jewish convert to Christianity was sentenced to death, only to be pulled from the burning stake and into a formal religious interrogation. His confession was as astonishing to his inquisitors as his brush with mortality is to us: the condemned man described a Jewish conspiracy to persuade recent converts to denounce their newfound Christian faith. His claims were corroborated by witnesses and became the catalyst for a series of trials that unfolded over the course of the next twenty months. Between Christian and Jew: Conversion and Inquisition in the Crown of Aragon, 1250-1391 (U Pennsylvania Press, 2012; paperback 2023) closely analyzes these events, which Paola Tartakoff considers paradigmatic of inquisitorial proceedings against Jews in the period. The trials also serve as the backbone of her nuanced consideration of Jewish conversion to Christianity--and the unwelcoming Christian response to Jewish conversions--during a period that is usually celebrated as a time of relative interfaith harmony.The book lays bare the intensity of the mutual hostility between Christians and Jews in medieval Spain. Tartakoff's research reveals that the majority of Jewish converts of the period turned to baptism in order to escape personal difficulties, such as poverty, conflict with other Jews, or unhappy marriages. They often met with a chilly reception from their new Christian brethren, making it difficult to integrate into Christian society. Tartakoff explores Jewish antagonism toward Christians and Christianity by examining the aims and techniques of Jews who sought to re-Judaize apostates as well as the Jewish responses to inquisitorial prosecution during an actual investigation. Prosecutions such as the 1341 trial were understood by papal inquisitors to be in defense of Christianity against perceived Jewish attacks, although Tartakoff shows that Christian fears about Jewish hostility were often exaggerated. Drawing together the accounts of Jews, Jewish converts, and inquisitors, this cultural history offers a broad study of interfaith relations in medieval Iberia. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/christian-studies

Evangelical Christians and members of the global LGBTQI human rights movement have vied for influence in Haiti since the 2010 earthquake. Each side accuses the other of serving foreign interests. Yet each proposes future foreign interventions on behalf of their respective causes despite the country’s traumatic past with European colonialism and American imperialism. In The Sexual Politics of the Empire: Postcolonial Homophobia in Haiti (University of Illinois Press, 2023), author Erin L. Durban shows two discourses dominate discussions of intervention. One maintains imperialist notions of a backward Haiti so riddled with cultural deficiencies that foreign supervision is necessary to overcome Haitians’ resistance to progress. The other sees Haiti as a modern but failed state that exists only through its capacity for violence, including homophobia. In the context of these competing claims, the book explores the creative ways that same-sex desiring and gender creative Haitians contend with anti-LGBTQI violence and ongoing foreign intervention.As the episode neared its conclusion, Erin took a moment to shine a spotlight on the vital efforts of various organizations operating within Haiti, emphasizing the significance of their work and expressing a keen interest in bringing their endeavors to the forefront. The aim was not only to acknowledge these organizations but also to explore avenues through which individuals could offer their support, be it through donations, volunteering, or simply by raising awareness about their commendable efforts. These entities represent just a fraction of the many groups making a difference in Haiti, and include: 1. The Haitian Studies Association: An organization dedicated to scholarly research and academic excellence concerning Haiti and its diaspora. 2. The Lambi Fund of Haiti: A group focused on supporting economic justice, democracy, and sustainable development in Haiti through grassroots initiatives. 3. Partners In Health (PIH) in Haiti: A healthcare organization committed to bringing high-quality health care to some of Haiti's most remote areas. 4. Association of Haitian Women in Boston: An organization aimed at empowering Haitian women by providing them with resources to achieve social and economic stability. Erin L. Durban is an associate professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Minnesota–Twin Cities, affiliated with American Studies; Gender, Women, Sexuality Studies; and the Center for Race, Indigeneity, Disability, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. Their scholarship works at the intersections of interdisciplinary feminist and queer studies, transnational American studies, critical disability studies, and critical ecologies.Aleem Mahabir is a PhD candidate in Geography at the University of the West Indies, Mona, Jamaica. His research interests lie at the intersection of Urban Geography, Social Exclusion, and Psychology. His dissertation research focuses on the link among negative psychosocial dispositions, exclusion, and under-development among marginalized communities in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago. You can find him on Twitter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/christian-studies

Caritas, a form of grace that turned our love for our neighbour into a spiritual practice, was expected of all early modern Christians, and corresponded with a set of ethical rules for living that displayed one's love in the everyday. Caritas was not just a willingness to behave morally, to keep the peace, and to uphold social order however, but was expected to be felt as a strong passion, like that of a parent to a child. Caritas: Neighbourly Love and the Early Modern Self (Oxford UP, 2021) explores the importance of caritas to early modern communities, introducing the concept of the 'emotional ethic' to explain how neighbourly love become not only a code for moral living but a part of felt experience. As an emotional ethic, caritas was an embodied norm, where physical feeling and bodily practices guided right action, and was practiced in the choices and actions of everyday life. Using a case study of the Scottish lower orders, this book highlights how caritas shaped relationships between men and women, families, and the broader community.Focusing on marriage, childhood and youth, 'sinful sex', privacy and secrecy, and hospitality towards the itinerant poor, Caritas provides a rich analysis of the emotional lives of the poor and the embodied moral framework that guided their behaviour. Charting the period 1660 to 1830, it highlights how caritas evolved in response to the growing significance of romantic love, as well as new ideas of social relation between men, such as fraternity and benevolence. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/christian-studies