John Fitzgerald
Professor Emeritus
Concurrent Appointment, Department of Classics
Primary Area: Christianity and Judaism in Antiquity
Biography
John T. Fitzgerald is an historian of early Christianity whose research focuses on the New Testament within its Jewish, Greek, and Roman contexts. In addition to teaching the undergraduate “Foundations of Theology: Biblical and Historical” (THEO 10002) course most semesters, he offers masters-level courses on “New Testament Introduction” and “The Life, Letters, and Legacy of Paul” as well as doctoral seminars on “The Contexts of Early Christianity,” “The Pastoral Epistles,” and other books of the New Testament. His current major projects are a monograph on the Gospel of John, a commentary on the Pastoral Epistles for the Hermeneia series, an edited volume on the Nabataeans and Their Neighbors in the Roman Near East, an edited volume on households in the biblical world, and a revised, updated edition of Everett Ferguson’s Backgrounds of Early Christianity.
Research Interests
Contexts of early Christianity, Gospel of John, the Pastoral Epistles, households, domestic violence, Nabataeans, history of New Testament reception and interpretation
Selected Publications
“Dining in Martial’s World,” in The Social Worlds of Ancient Jews and Christians: Essays in Honor of L. Michael White, ed. Jamie Gunderson, Anthony Keddie, and Douglas Boin, NovTSup 189 (Leiden: Brill, 2022), 131–60.
“Taxation and Tribute in Early State Thought and Practice,” in Taxation, Economy, and Revolt in Ancient Rome, Galilee, and Egypt, ed. Thomas R. Blanton IV, Agnes Choi, and Jinyu Liu, Routledge Monographs in Classical Studies (London: Routledge, 2022), 17–41.
“Taxation in the Early Greek World and the Ethics of Tax Compliance and Evasion in Early Greek Moral Thought,” in Ancient Philosophy and Early Christianity: Studies in Honor of Johan C. Thom, ed. Gideon R. Kotzé and Philip R. Bosman, NovTSup 188 (Leiden: Brill, 2022), 217–45.
“Arthur Darby Nock and the Study of Sallustius,” in Celebrating Arthur Darby Nock: Choice, Change, and Conversion, ed. Robert Matthew Calhoun, James Kelhofer, and Clare Rothschild, WUNT 472 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2021), 279–98.
“The Religious and Philosophical Milieu,” in The Cambridge Companion to the New Testament, ed. Patrick Gray (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021), 25-49.
Education
- Ph.D., Yale University