Simboli Hall 204A
Telephone: 617-552-3082
Email: litwa@bc.edu
ORCID
New Testament, Greco-Roman religions; Philonic Studies; Hermeticism, heresiology; Gnostic and Nag Hammadi studies; ancient philosophy; ancient mythology; deification (theosis); ancient esoteric movements (in particular, Greek mystery cults); ruler worship
Dr. M. David Litwa (MDiv, Emory University; ThM, Duke University; PhD, University of Virginia, 2013) is a scholar of ancient Mediterranean religions with a focus on the New Testament and early Christianity. Prior to coming to md传媒国产剧 College, he taught courses at Virginia Tech, the College of William & Mary, and the University of Virginia. From 2017-2022, he was Senior Research Fellow at the Institute for Religion and Critical Inquiry at the Australian Catholic University in Melbourne.
He currently serves as one of the unit chairs of the Bible, Myth, and Myth Theory Group at the Society of Biblical Literature. He is also an active member of the North American Patristics Society, where in recent years he has organized panels on Alternative Christianities (2022), and Nag Hammadi and Gnostic Studies (2018). He is also a member of the Society for New Testament Studies. In an effort to make scholarship more widely available, Dr. Litwa maintains an active online presence. He has participated in numerous podcasts, online seminars, virtual panels, and is active on several digital teaching platforms.
Books
(2022) Carpocrates, Marcellina, and Epiphanes: Three Early Christian Teachers of Alexandria and Rome, (Routledge).
(2022) Found Christianities: Remaking the World in the Second Century, (Bloomsbury)
(2021) The Evil Creator: Origins of an Early Christian Idea (Oxford).
(2021) Posthuman Transformation in Ancient Mediterranean Thought: Becoming Angels and Demons, (Cambridge University Press).
(2019) How the Gospels Became History: Jesus and Mediterranean Myths, (Yale University Press).
(2018) Hermetica II: The Excerpts of Stobaeus, Papyrus Fragments, and Ancient Testimonies in a English Translation with Notes and Introductions, (Cambridge University Press).
(2016) Desiring Divinity: Self-deification in Ancient Jewish and Christian Mythmaking, (Oxford University Press).
(2016) Refutation of All Heresies: Text, Translation, and Notes, Writings from the Greco-Roman World, (Atlanta: SBL Press).
(2014) Iesus Deus: The Early Christian Depiction of Jesus as a Mediterranean God, (Minneapolis: Fortress).
(2012) We Are Being Transformed: Deification in Paul鈥檚 Soteriology, Beihefte zum Zeitschrift f眉r Neutestamentliche Wissenschaft 187, (Walter de Gruyter).