Matthew R. Crawford

NAPS members whose membership is current should have received an email today about registration for the 2026 conference. If you didn't receive the email, make sure your membership hasn't lapsed. The program can be found here: custom.cvent.com/DADF18846EBF...

Congratulations!

Come to Nijmegen and be my colleague! 3-year postdoc on ethnicity and (in)equality in early Christianity, supervised by @matthijsdendulk.bsky.social. All I can say is we are a great group of people and Nijmegen is a pretty good place to live.

EIEC Image: Jesus and the dog-headed men, Kiev Psalter, 1397

In case you haven't yet heard about it, there is an interesting new project on 'Ethnicity and (In)Equality in Early Christianity' being led by Matthijs den Dulk (Radboud University). Currently hiring for a 3-year postdoc. Application deadline is 8 March.
www.eiec.info/home

The ‘Crisis of the Humanities’ Is Over. That’s Not a Good Thing. All of higher ed now suffers the attacks of politics and technology.

This was published in the dead week between Christmas and New Year’s. If you work in education & were, reasonably, taking a break, maybe you missed it.

Don’t miss it.

Maybe, maybe not. Time will tell!

A Battle by Night? A Revisionist Account of the Early Stages of the Nestorian Controversy The present study sets forth a revisionist account of the origins of the Nestorian controversy that seeks to overturn several long-standing scholarly assumptions related to 1) the relative importance ...

We've just finished marking the 1700th anniversary of the Council of Nicaea. Is it too early to start thinking about the upcoming 1600th anniversary of the Council of Ephesus? Here's a start.

www.academia.edu/145809087/A_...

JOB OPENING: Associate Dean (Research), Theology and Philosophy

Seeking an academic for high-level academic leadership across the faculty, operating within a University-wide research strategy focused on high quality, high impact and innovative research.

candidate.aurion.cloud/acu/producti...

ACU experts elected to Australian Academy of Humanities Australian Catholic University academics Professor Matthew Crawford and Professor Debjani Ganguly have been elected fellows of the Australian Academy of Humanities.

www.acu.edu.au/about-acu/ne...

It’s publication day! I decided 11 years ago I wanted to do this project and began working on it eight years ago, so it’s gratifying to reach this point. Thanks to all who helped us bring it to fruition.

Please reskeet: CFP is open for the North American Patristics Society meeting, May 21-23, 2026 in Chicago

Submit abstracts either for the general call or to a pre-arranged theme, or you can submit a whole planned session!

Deadline is Nov 19th, details at link:

www.patristics.org/annual-meeti...

Ancient Jewish cemetery discovered in UK near Roman ruins | The Jerusalem Post The cemetery, discovered on the Barbican estate, is understood to date back to 1070 and is located near ancient Roman walls.

The oldest Jewish cemetery in the UK, dating back to the Norman Conquest, was just discovered. www.jpost.com/history/arti...

There is still one week to go before the application deadline for our two job openings in biblical and early Christian studies (15 August). Please spread the word! I would be glad to speak with anyone who has questions about the positions.

My associate supervisor Rob Turnbull has written an exciting and accessible report on the research he's been doing! He recently published his PhD dissertation (brill.com/display/titl...), and he's currently applying phylogenetic methods to texts beyond the New Testament.

Back in my happy place at the Biblioteca Angelica in Rome with the reading room all to myself today.

11th July is the feast of St Benedict and here is the earliest extant copy of the Rule of St Benedict.

Bodleian Library MS. Hatton 48; Rule of St. Benedict; c.700 CE (?); England (Canterbury?); f.1r @bodleianlibraries.bsky.social

I can tell you from experience that the IRCI is a beautiful place to work! Don't miss this opportunity!

I am delighted to announce the IRCI has 2 job openings in early Christianity (specialisation open, research-focus, early career). Closing date 15 Aug. Contact me with any questions. We hope you'll consider joining our excellent group of scholars!
candidate.aurion.cloud/acu/producti...

A small discovery: the Lexikon zur byzantinischen Gräzität includes an entry for εὐάγγελμα with a single ref: Didymus, De Trin 1.29.8. The term shows up nowhere else in TLG. The ms actually reads ἐπαγγέλματα which was misread in the 1769 editio princeps and a new ed in 1975.

So far the standard version of Copilot (@msftresearch.bsky.social) can't transcribe an 11th c Greek manuscript and in fact made up a completely different text it claimed was the transcription. Seems to have picked up βασιλέα from the first line, misread it as a similar word, and then ran with it.

So, here's the webpage of our project on Gospel harmonies. I will be working with a wonderful advisory board, including my wonderful Doktormutter @joantaylor.bsky.social, and @mcrawford.bsky.social .
mf.no/en/ungos

I asked one of supervisors about this (he'd spent some time at Saint Catherine's), and he responded with some relieving news. The Greek papers seem to have gotten the story wrong: newsprime.gr/sina-den-gin... (I had to use Google Translate on the page)

Spotted today at the Vatican Museums. An unusual depiction of the evangelists as oarsmen in a boat with Christ at the helm. Matthew is missing but we have John, Luke, and Mark, the so-called ‘Western’ order of the gospels.

I am delighted to announce that I have received a fellowship from the Humboldt Foundation for a research stay in Tübingen to produce an edition of The Emperor Julian's Against the Galileans and to study its 20th c. reception, including a German translation from the Third Reich.

Manuscript Treasures from Afro-Eurasia Throughout the Middle Ages manuscripts were routinely commissioned, copied, illustrated, displayed, read, and transferred across both sides of the Mediterranean. Their significance as vehicles for the...

If you like manuscripts, there's lots of interesting stuff in this new open access volume.

www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi...

Registration is still open for our Makarios conference on Love of Neighbor and Human Flourishing (deadline 15 May) which will take place at ACU’s Rome campus in partnership with Baylor, Harvard, and Boston College! >

Is the 1700th anniversary of Nicaea an opportunity to reestablish a common date for Easter? - ABC Religion & Ethics This year is not only the 1,700th anniversary of the first ecumenical council of the church, but also one of the years when Catholic and Orthodox Easter celebrations coincide — an occasion to reflect ...

I wrote a short piece on Easter and the 1700th anniversary of the Council of Nicaea
www.abc.net.au/religion/170...

Dual language editions on facing pages. Coming late 2025 or early 2026:

Phoebadius, Contra Arianos (DelCogliano)
Apollinarius, Kata Meros Pistos (Kelley Spoerl)
Theodore, Debate with Macedonians (Matt Crawford)

Join for a hybrid BECS Seminar with Prof. Bronwen Neil on “Sarcophagi on the Street: Burial in the Necropoleis at Roman Ostia” to be held at 11:00 am AEDT on Thursday, 3 April 2025.

Iron Age Hoard Discovery Alters Our Understanding of Life in Britain 2,000 Years Ago | Historic England The Melsonby Hoard, a vast deposit of more than 800 items, provides an archaeological time capsule from the Iron Age around 2,000 years ago.

"Quite simply, this is one of the most important and exciting Iron Age period discoveries made in the UK"

Historic England Press release on the Melsonby hoard 👇👇

historicengland.org.uk/whats-new/ne...