J. Albert Harrill

• Associate Professor, Department of Religious Studies
• Adjunct Professor, Department of History

Education

• Ph.D. at University of Chicago, 1993

Contact Information

Sycamore Hall, Rm. 207

(812) 855-8654

Background

I am an ancient historian trained equally in New Testament studies, early Judaism, and Roman imperial society and so approach the Bible from the wider historical context of the ancient Mediterranean world. My overarching research agenda is to reconstruct the Greco-Roman environment of early Christianity in order to interpret the New Testament writings in their ancient context. My most recent book, Slaves in the New Testament: Literary, Social, and Moral Dimensions (Fortress Press, 2006), demonstrates how frequently the early Christian sources echo Roman society’s slave-holding values and anxieties about living with people forcibly held in bondage. Other research areas include the ancient family and household and Roman religious ritual and culture. I also do the history of biblical interpretation. Students of modern American history, for example, may find of interest my research on the ideological use of the New Testament to justify, and use to condemn, modern slavery in the United States.

Selected Awards

• Alexander von Humboldt Research Fellowship (2002)
• National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Stipend (1999)

Research Interests

• New Testament studies
• Early Judaism
• Ancient Mediterranean world
• Religious studies

Courses Recently Taught

• Introduction to the New Testament
• Judaism in the Making
• Jesus and the Gospels
• Paul and His Influence in Early Christianity
• The Bible and Slavery
• Ancient Mediterranean Religions
• Colloquium in Ancient Religions

Publication Highlights

Books

Slaves in the New Testament: Literary, Social, and Moral Dimensions. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2006.

The Manumission of Slaves in Early Christianity. Hermeneutische Untersuchungen zur Theologie 32. Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr (Paul Siebeck), 1995 (cloth); 1998 (paper).

Articles

“Servile Functionaries or Priestly Leaders? Roman Domestic Religion, Narrative Intertextuality, and Pliny’s Reference to Slave Christian Ministrae (Ep. 10,96,8).” Zeitschrift für die neutestamentliche Wissenschaft und die Kunde der älteren Kirche 97 (2006): 111–30.

“Coming of Age and Putting on Christ: The Toga Virilis Ceremony, its Paraenesis, and Paul’s Language of Baptism in Galatians.” Novum Testamentum 44 (2002): 251–77.

“The Influence of Roman Contract Law on Early Baptismal Formulae (Tertullian, Ad martyras 3).” Studia Patristica 36 (2001): 275–82.