Candida Moss

My course "Learning Coptic through the Gospel of Thomas" offers students affordable Coptic instruction from an expert.

Asynchronous or Synchronous (Mondays 9am Atlanta, GA time) + Lifetime access to course videos and instruction materials authored by me

www.religiondepartment.com/learning-cop...

The most bananas thing about this is the fact that for thousands of years since the Enoch and the Book of the Watchers technological innovation has been associated with malevolent and sometimes demonic forces. Thiel surely has this backwards. Angels are on the side of the regulators.

Poster for the Badè Museum's Fall 2025 - Spring 2026 Lecture Series for Disability in the Ancient Middle East and Mediterranean.

Starting next Thursday at 5:30pm BST (9:30am PST), the Badè Museum will kick off it's new Lecture Series. Co-sponsored by the Archaeological Research Facility @ucberkeleyofficial.bsky.social, the Series will explore Disability in the Ancient Middle East and Mediterranean. (1/4)

An image of two small bronze discs with elephants as the decoration.

On today’s new #PeoplingBlog, @lylaahlb.bsky.social takes us through her research on elephants and how they, and their accompanying peoples, served as vehicles for cultural exchange and transmission of knowledge as they traversed land and sea in antiquity:
peoplingthepast.com/2025/09/12/b... /1

Dura-Europos: Past, Present, Future | Studies in Classical Archaeology Abstract:This volume brings together an international and interdisciplinary host of scholars to reflect on the complicated legacies of exploration at the archaeological site of Dura-Europos, situated on the western bank of the Euphrates River near modern Salihiyeh (Syria). A chance discovery after World War I kicked off a series of excavations that would span the next century and whose finds are today housed in collections worldwide, including the Yale University Art Gallery, the Louvre, and the National Museum in Damascus. Dura-Europos exemplifies a multiethnic frontier town at the crossroads of major trade routes. Its textual remains and remarkably-preserved Christian, Jewish, and polytheist religious sanctuaries provide key resources for the study of antiquity and attest to the cross-cultural interconnectivity that was demonstrably central to the ancient world but which has been too often obscured by Eurocentric historiographic traditions and siloed disciplinary divisions.Foreign-run, large-scale archaeological campaigns of the early twentieth century, like those at Dura-Europos, have created narratives of power and privilege that often exclude local communities. The significance of these imbalances is entangled with the destruction the site has experienced since the 2011 outbreak of conflict in Syria. As a step toward making knowledge descendant of early excavations more accessible, this volume includes Arabic summaries of each paper, following up on the simultaneous Arabic interpretation provided at the 2022 hybrid conference whose proceedings form the core of this publication. The papers address topics connected to essential themes in relation to Dura-Europos: long-distance trade relations and cross-border interactions in antiquity, including the exchange of technologies, people, and materials; Christianity, Judaism, and other religious practices, and their relations to one another; contemporary trafficking of looted artifacts; cultural heritage and the Islamic State; and the evolving role of museum collections, technologies, and archival materials for research.

I’m delighted that my chapter, ‘The Bone Dolls from Dura-Europos: Embodying Childhood Experience’, has been published by Brepols in ‘Dura-Europos:Past,Present,Future’,available open access, www.brepolsonline.net/doi/book/10..... Special thanks to Lisa Brody,Anne Hunnell Chen, @jenbaird.bsky.social

Also good advice for grad students--

Joseph Smith From an award-winning biographer, a riveting and deeply researched portrait of Mormonism’s charismatic founder   Joseph Smith Jr. (1805–1844) was one of...

Buy John Turner's work here (or at libraries near you): yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300...

How Joseph Smith changed American Christianity forever The founder of the Mormon Church rocked 19th-century America with his spiritual visions, his belief in polygamy—and even a presidential run.

My latest column for National Geographic is on Joseph Smith. It features the amazing new biography by @georgemasonu.bsky.social prof. John Turner and quotes from @benjaminepark.bsky.social's American Zion.
www.nationalgeographic.com/history/arti...

The formal announcement (with correct room location) for my talk at Yale on September 19. classics.yale.edu/event/classi...

Inaugural Lecture - Professor Lucy Grig | School of History, Classics & Archaeology | History Classics and Archaeology Professor Lucy Grig - Professor of the History of Late Antiquity - will give her inaugural lecture on 'A slow history of Late Antiquity'.

If you are in edibburgh, go see the brilliant Lucy Grig! hca.ed.ac.uk/updates-even...

He is specifically talking about slavery as it was practiced in the Roman Empire

Oh Meira I am so sorry. So many hugs.

Hermas*, obviously

And watch out for (more) trailblazing work by @jeremiahcoogan.bsky.social. I am hopeful that books by @illdottore.bsky.social Chris Londa, Michael Freeman, and Cat Lambert aren’t too far away.

I haven’t read the book but I am familiar with Isaac’s important work on bodily difference and disability. It’s amazing that there’s going to be a Cambridge Element on this new area. That’s a sign that interest in human labor and enslavement in book production is here to stay.

Second @isaactsoon.bsky.social announces the forthcoming publication of his Cambridge Element Literate Workers and the Production of Early Christian Literature. Given the Cambridge Elements swift publication schedule this shouldn’t be far away.

This book is a groundbreaking piece on Hermes but it also features important chapters on ancient writing and the definitive explanation of divine possession in early Christian literature. If I was more organized I would have been honored to endorse it.

Black Book cover featuring a bilingual ancient inscription and the title “God, Slavery, and Early Christianity: Divine Possession and Ethics in the Shepherd of Hermes”

Lots of exciting new books for those who work on ancient slavery and writing arriving in the next few months! First up @chancebonar.bsky.social’s God, Slavery, and Early Christianity from @universitypress.cambridge.org

Sadly not this announcement is only useful for those at Yale.

On Friday 9/19 at 12pm I’ll be speaking to the Yale Classics department about ancient writing practices, disability, and enslavement. Hope to see you there!

To take an example Joe would be familiar with from his work on books, Pliny imagines that his enslaved reader enjoys reading as Pliny would just as much as Pliny enjoys hearing it. (Ep.8.1 Sarah Blake has a great analysis of this)

I may have linked to the wrong article but Roman fantasies that enslaved people might be happy with their lot is all over the place.

I don’t think this is true the “happy slave” trope comes from Plautus as Kelly Dugan has shown crossworks.holycross.edu/cgi/viewcont...

So many religion departments in the US have been gutted in recent days (Virginia Tech, Oregon) that it feels churlish to announce that my Religion Department is hiring a TT professor of Religion in the United States. Or maybe it's actually the right time for it. slc.peopleadmin.com/postings/2425

I am so sorry Shaily. If there is anything I can do to help let me know.

I admit it, I laughed out loud. It's *supposed* to be that there are only review panels of important and influential books.

Amazingly this is supposed to be an *honor*. It's usually quite fun unless a panelist just doesn't like something substantive (e.g. public facing scholarship)... which may have happened to me but ultimately reflected poorly on them. In sum: we are masochists.

@joelbaden.bsky.social may have something about it in his biography of Exodus for Princeton.