Aside from the time management challenge, teaching Western Civ this quarter was a fulfilling experience. I had a great bunch of students who asked interesting questions and offered creative insights when reading ancient texts. And it was, of course, a great learning experience for me to think synthetically about a vast span of history. Puts things in perspective. I’m looking forward to doing the same class with a different professor next quarter, since it will have some continuity but also allow for filling in a few gaps that the other class didn’t cover.

I finished up a paper for the end of the quarter in Bartchy’s Paul of Tarsus seminar. I decided to do Paul and empire, then I narrowed down into First Thessalonians. I did some work with social identity in First Thessalonians, as well as imperialism and eschatology. That, too, was a learning experience. I feel like I’m an archaeologist on a long, tedious dig. Each paper reveals a little tiny bit more that I hadn’t noticed before. I really appreciate the way Douglas Campbell put it in his recent tome: “And as I began to try to write, a frustrating experience began to unfold — repeatedly. I would begin to articulate my concerns as best I could, painfully compose a chapter or two of prose, and then the argument would break down. It was as if a wave would run each time a little further up the beach before it would break — which it always did — and run back to sea” (xxv). Not that I presume to be writing something something of the magnitude of Campbell’s work, but the dissertation I have in mind has to deal with some very nebulous concepts and methods. It’s a very slow process trying to get a handle on them.

Next quarter, I’ll be doing a graduate seminar with Ronald Mellor on Roman Religion. That should be a fun class with all my colleagues in the ancient field at UCLA (many of us are TAing together) and a couple other Bartchy students. I’ve been getting interested in exploring voluntary associations, so I think I might do a paper in that area for Mellor’s seminar. I’m gearing up for it by reading Philip Harland’s new book, kindly sent along to me by T & T Clark for review (Thanks, Abby!!).

But I would suggest that in the telling of Luke-Acts, the ethical teachings of early Christians share considerable space with the values of the Pax Romana – inscribing violence as peace, conquest as beneficence, and cruelty as clemency.

Earlier she says of the “Lord, forgive them” prayers of Jesus and Stephen:

As an expression of self-mastery and the ability to refrain from retaliating in the face of undeserved violence, it is an assertion of the ethical superiority of Christianity over Judaism. As an expression of undeserved mercy substituting for deserved retaliation, it may be considered a “marcionite” assertion, and may well have taken shape within the context of the developing second-century marcionite controversy.

She presumes an early second-century date for Luke-Acts. I appreciate her paper, as it makes me consider new things, but I’m not on board.

Do you think there’s anything to it?