Santa Clara University
Religious Studies Department, SCU
Dig Sites
Course Links
Syllabus
Class Prep
Camino
Assignments
Dig Sites
Bible
Library Reserve
Bibliography
Glossary
Extra Credit
Grades
Research Link
Directions Presentation Schedule Excavators



View Gender in Early Christianity: A Tour of the Ancient World in a larger map





Excavators

  1 2 3  
  Sedona Leza Ashley Anderson Elizabeth Guzzi &
Mikaela Wentworth
 
  4 5 6  
  Katrina Bresniker Abby Aguirre Obasi Lewis  
  7 8 9  
  Persia Liu Aldo Caballero Nicole Linnard  
 



Presentation Schedule
Sites with a spade to the left are live digs this quarter.  The title of each project is a link to a bibliography for your dig site.


Women & Prophecy in the Cults of Corinth
   Corinth, Greece
   Excavator:
  1/28
M
Early Christian women led a lot of the public worship in Corinth, most likely because women also had a high-profile role in the local cult of Aphrodite, goddess of love. The site has been heavily excavated, so there’s tons of interesting archaeological and inscriptional evidence to work with, including the Digital Corinth, a Web site sponsored by the American School of Classical Studies at Athens. Your core biblical text will be 1 Corinthians.

Historical Paper Topics Women in the Pauline Communities
Exegetical Paper Topics Women Prophets in Corinth
Contemporary Paper Topics Same-sex relations in Christianity today; women’s leadership or ordination in a particular Christian denomination
spade-sm.png
Roman Culture in a Near Eastern City
   Ephesus, Turkey
   Excavator: Sedona Leza
  1/30
W
Ephesus was one of the most important cities in western Turkey, on the coast of the Aegean Sea, and it's also one of the best preserved, so there’s a lot of archaeological and inscriptional evidence.  Because this was one of the four most important cities in the Roman Empire, we will have occasion to visit it twice.  This presentation will focus on general evidence of Roman culture and gender construction at the site in the late first and early second century CE, helping us to understand the integration of Roman household codes in Christian literature in the deutero-Pauline Epistle to the Ephesians (please avoid evidence of the cult of Artemis and fourth-century sites and events associated with Jesus’ mother, the Virgin Mary).  The second presentation will “drop in” on Ephesus in the fourth century, when the "battle" between the old gods and the new Christian religion was underway.  This second presentation will focus on the Artemisian and sites associated with the Virgin Mary and the importance of the "fertile virgin" in that location.

Historical Paper Topics Marriage in the Roman world and Christian accommodations
Exegetical Paper Topics Household Codes in Ephesians (or other NT texts)
Contemporary Paper Topics Christian contributions to debates about marriage or about the roles of men and women in marriage; Christian ethics of immigration as immigration laws disrupt families
spade-sm.png
The Cult of St. Thecla in Asia Minor
   Seleucia (modern Silifke), Turkey
   Excavator: Ashley Anderson
  2/4
M
According to the Acts of Paul and Thecla (a book that didn't make it into the Bible but was extremely popular in early Christianity), Thecla dumped her fiancé to follow St. Paul and his radical message of celibacy.  Despite embracing the virginal life, her story is replete with erotic elements, and her radical lifestyle of cutting her hair, dressing as a man, baptizing herself, surviving numerous attempted martyrdoms, and healing people of various ailments invested her with powers that made for a popular cult in Seleucia and beyond after her death.  People streamed to the place as a pilgrimage site, and lots of archaeological and literary evidence exists to help us understand her popularity.

Historical Paper Topics Pilgrimage to women’s shrines in early Christianity; women and the rise of early Christianity; cross-dressing saints
Exegetical Paper Topics Women in the apocryphal acts; the construction of gender in ancient romance novels compared to Christian apocryphal acts
Contemporary Paper Topics Christian perspectives on the price of women’s leadership in society
spade-sm.png
Gnostic Groups in Egypt
   Nag Hammadi, Egypt
   Excavators: Elizabeth Guzzi & Mikaela Wentworth
  2/11
M
In The Da Vinci Code, Dan Brown claimed that Jesus and Mary Magdalene were married on the basis of the Gnostic texts discovered in Egypt.  What do these texts really say, and who were the Gnostics?  We don't have a lot of archaeological evidence here, but because of the discovery of the Nag Hammadi Codices in 1945 we have tons of literary evidence to work with.

Historical Paper Topics Women in the Gnostic communities
Exegetical Paper Topics The Gospel of Jesus' Wife; the Gospel of Mary Magdalene, the Gospel of Philip
Contemporary Paper Topics Why Dan Brown's thesis of a married Jesus and Mary Magdalene is so popular in our culture (Dan Brown is the author of The Da Vinci Code)
spade-sm.png
Clothing & Dress in Rome
   Rome, Italy
   Excavator:Katrina Bresniker
  2/13
W
We will visit Rome twice in the site presentations.  This first presentation will focus on clothing and dress in the second century as these are depicted in archaeological artifacts (a later presentation will focus on the construction of masculine ideals in fourth-century Rome, as the empire is falling apart).  There's tons of archaeological and inscriptional evidence that you can draw on, ranging from the catacombs of the 2nd-3rd centuries to Roman public construction and its celebration of the emperor and his wife as models of male/female. This presentation will focus on the first two centuries and to the topic of clothing, hairstyle, and other body decoration.

Historical Paper Topics Roman clothing conventions and Christian practice
Exegetical Paper Topics Tertullian on women's clothing
Contemporary Paper Topics Christian views of clothing and gender performance (among ordained clergy, congregation members, rules about comportment in society); the modesty movement

The Montanist Shrine at Mount Pepuza, Phrygia
   Phrygia, Turkey
   Excavator:
  no date
This was the center of Montanism, a second-century Christian apocalyptic movement led by Montanus and two female prophets Priscilla (or Prisca) and Maximilla. Calling themselves "The Three," these leaders believed that they were receiving direct revelations from God through the Holy Spirit, and encouraged others to fast, pray and avoid remarriage so that they too could become vessels of the Holy Spirit.  They believed that God was pouring out his Spirit as a prelude to the descent of the New Jerusalem on Phrygian soil.  Priscilla further claimed that Christ had appealed to her in female form.  These new revelations and the emphasis on direct revelation led some to refer to the movement as the "New Prophecy."  Eusebius, the church historian of the fourth century, adds the curious detail that Montanist prophets dyed their hair and stained their eyelids.  While the movement started in Asia Minor (modern Turkey), it quickly spread to Africa, Rome and even Gaul.  Tertullian was perhaps the movement's most famous convert.

Historical Paper Topics Women's charismatic authority in apocalyptic movements of early Christianity
Exegetical Paper Topics The female Christ in Montanist inscriptions
Contemporary Paper Topics Women's leadership in charismatic Christian communities; women's roles in popular Christian apocalyptic literature and movies
spade-sm.png
Gender & Martyrdom in North Africa
   Carthage, Tunisia
   Excavator: Abby Aguirre
  2/20
W
Today we read the account of the noble African woman Perpetua and her slave Felicitas, martyred in the arena for refusing to renounce Christianity.  The archaeological evidence here will focus on Roman practices of what the Roman historian Kathleen Coleman has called "fatal charades"—the performances Rome staged as mechanisms to execute "criminals," how these techniques worked to instill both fear and admiration for the emperor, and why the Christian resistance to Rome in these public spectacles undermined Rome's efforts.  Your archaeological study will not be focused on a city, but rather on the public buildings constructed for these fatal charades.  These grand Roman spectacles also most likely inform the spectacular account of the Book of Revelation, which imagines the slain Lamb and the 144,000 Christian martyrs finally getting their revenge on the Roman empire.

Historical Paper Topics The tension between virginity and rape in women's martyr accounts; gender differences in early Christian martyrologies (are male martyr accounts different from female ones in gendered ways?); marketing celibacy through martyrdom; the political value of featuring the stories of female (as opposed to male) martyrs
Exegetical Paper Topics The martyrdom of Perpetua and Felicitas; the pornographic portrayal of Agnes' martyrdom and its function in Christian imagination
Contemporary Paper Topics Sex, violence and the sacred; Mel Gibson's 2004 movie The Passion of the Christ as a hypermasculinized martyrdom, and contrasts between our culture (where men disproportionately play the role of martyr) and early Christianity (where, apart from Jesus, women do)
spade-sm.png
Manly Values in Rome
   Rome, Italy
   Excavator: Obasi Lewis
  2/25
M
We will visit Rome twice in the site presentations.  This second presentation will focus on the construction of masculine ideals in fourth-century Rome, as the empire is falling apart (an earlier presentation will have focused on clothing and dress in the second century as these are depicted in archaeological artifacts).  Given the importance of Rome and the interest in it among archaeologists, there's tons of archaeological and inscriptional evidence that you can draw on for this topic.

Historical Paper Topics Manly values and male asceticism in the city
Exegetical Paper Topics Augustine, Ambrose
Contemporary Paper Topics Ascetic exercise and gender virtue; the gendering of Christ in Christian art today (painting, literature, movies); see also the ideas under "Desert Warfare" below

Desert Warfare: Hermits & Their Foes
   Wadi Natrun, Egypt
   Excavator:
  2/25
M
While Christian monasticism didn't begin in Egypt, many of the most celebrated hermits lived here. Perhaps the most famous was Anthony, who renounced a life of privilege and moved out here to the Wadi Natrun region to live life as a solitary. His story, written by Athanasius of nearby Alexandria, transformed the Roman masculine ideal, offering this monk as an exemplary spiritual warrior whose potency was no longer measured in terms of property, family and social power, but rather in terms of poverty, spiritual community and miraculous power over demons and desires.

Historical Paper Topics Manly values and male asceticism in the desert
Exegetical Paper Topics The Life of Antony; the Life of Paul the Hermit
Contemporary Paper Topics Training men for Christian virtue (gendering of ethics; you could look at a group like the Promise Keepers, the Christian Men's Network, the National Coalition of Ministries to Men, or the K.I.N.G. Movement)
spade-sm.png
Artemis & the Virgin Mary in 4th-century Ephesus
   Ephesus, Turkey
   Excavator: Persia Liu
2/27
W
Ephesus was one of the most important cities in western Turkey, on the coast of the Aegean Sea, and it's also one of the best preserved, so there's a lot of archaeological and inscriptional evidence.  Because this was one of the four most important cities in the Roman Empire, we will have occasion to visit it twice.  This second presentation will focus on the cult of Artemis and fourth-century sites and events associated with Jesus' mother, the Virgin Mary.  This topic explores a period when the "battle" between the old gods and the new Christian religion was underway.  Ephesus was a world center for the worship of Artemis, the virgin goddess of fertility and the hunt, and remnants of the massive temple to her are still visible.  In the fourth century, her cult was gradually overtaken by reverence for another famous "fertile virgin," Jesus' mother, the Virgin Mary.  Please avoid general evidence of Roman culture and gender construction at the site in the late first and early second century CE, as the first Ephesus excavator will be focusing on that period and the Epistle to the Ephesians.

Historical Paper Topics Virgin deities and Christian adaptations
Exegetical Paper Topics Jerome, Against Jovinian or The Perpetual Virginity of Blessed Mary, against Helvidius
Contemporary Paper Topics Gender analysis of virgin cults or movements today (e.g., Virgin de Guadalupe)
spade-sm.png
Spiritual Marriages in 4th-century Antioch
   Antioch, Syria
   Excavator: Aldo Caballero
  2/27
W
A couple of our texts for today come from the pen of John Chrysostom, a famous early Christian preacher in Antioch, Syria who would have liked it if everyone became a virgin.  But he most certainly didn't like a new arrangement that some Christian virgins were embracing—a man and a woman living as virgins together, in the same house.  The scandal!  What were people doing in Antioch, why were they doing it, and what do we know about this 3rd most important city in the Roman Empire?

Historical Paper Topics Why Christians entered spiritual marriages
Exegetical Paper Topics John Chrysostom's criticism of spiritual marriages
Contemporary Paper Topics Spiritual spouses of early Christianity compared to father-daughter "purity balls," purity pledges, purity weddings today; the Courtship Movement
spade-sm.png
Prostitution in the Roman Empire
   All major cities (but focus on Pompeii, Italy)
   Excavators: Nicole Linnard
  3/4
M
This is the day that we’ll be reading stories of the “holy harlots,” women imagined to have been prostitutes who converted to Christianity and renounced their lives of sin.  In the process, they also, interestingly, often start dressing like men, looking like men, and one even takes up life in a men’s monastery (they only realize she’s a woman when she dies and they prepare her body for burial).  Many of these stories come from Syria, but there’s not as much archaeological and inscriptional evidence about prostitution from this region in general.  So you will cast the net more broadly and read about prostitution in the empire in general, deriving whatever evidence there is for the practice from the major urban areas.  A question to consider as you read is why these stories of holy harlots and transvestite saints became so popular among (of all people!) Christians, given the misery that actual prostitutes likely experienced.

Historical Paper Topics Real brothels in the Roman empire and the imagined brothels of Christian female martyr accounts; prostitution and the theatre in the sermons of John Chrysostom
Exegetical Paper Topics Analysis of a text about a holy harlot (Pelagia, Mary of Egypt, Mary niece of Abraham)
Contemporary Paper Topics Christian responses to sex trafficking today

Gender Constructs in the Christian East
   Edessa (modern Sanliurfa) & Nisibis (modern Nusaybin), Turkey
   Excavator:
  3/4
M
Christianity thrived outside of the Roman Empire as well. In fact, many of the stories of ascetic holy men and women whose extreme lifestyle provoked admiration and wonder come from the Syriac-speaking regions east of Antioch. Edessa and Nisibis were both located on the border of the Roman Empire, sometimes falling within and sometimes beyond its boundaries. There is not a lot of archaeological material from here, but there is a rich body of liturgical, exegetical and hymnic works. From all of it we can reconstruct something of the context of Christianity from what has been found.

Historical Paper Topics Asceticism in the east; the medieval Christian anorexics
Exegetical Paper Topics Gender analysis of a story of one of the extreme ascetics
Contemporary Paper Topics Read David Grumett and Rachel Muers' book, Theology on the Menu: Asceticism, Meat and Christian Diet (New York: Routledge, 2010); Christian ethical arguments for vegetarianism


Get Adobe Acrobat