Matthew Klem
Teaching Scholar, Theology
Primary Area: Christianity and Judaism in Antiquity
Biography
I'm a PhD candidate in Christianity and Judaism in Antiquity. I focus on Gospels, ancient book cultures, early Jewish and early Christian biblical interpretation, ecstatic prophecy, and women in antiquity. My dissertation considers intersections between cultic ritual and book culture in early Christianity and ancient Greek hero cults by comparing the Gospel of Mark with Philodemus's On Epicurus, the anonymous Life of Aesop, and Aristides's orations to Asclepius.
Research Interests
Gospels, Greek religion, ancient book culture, ecstatic prophecy, early Jewish and early Christian biblical interpretation
Representative Publications
“The Fall of Eve and the Fate of Her Daughters: Competing Interpretations of Genesis 3:13 in 1 Timothy and Gregory of Nazianzus.” Harvard Theological Review (forthcoming).
“Prophecy in Plutarch and Philo of Alexandria.” Journal for the Study of Judaism 55 (2024): 415–35.
“Elijah and Elisha in the Signs of the Gospel of John: Assessing Prophetic Christologies.” Catholic Biblical Quarterly 86 (2024): 528–49.
“The Voice behind the Mask: Problematizing the Theatre Metaphor for Ecstatic Prophecy in Plutarch’s De Pythiae oraculis.” Classical Quarterly 73 (2023): 311–19.
“Heavenly Writing and the Authority of Rewritten Scripture: Reevaluating Explicit References to the Pentateuch in Jubilees.” Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha 32 (2022–2023): 285–99.
Dissertation
"The Gospel of Mark as a Cultic Book: A Comparison with Greek Cultic Biographical Texts"
Director: David Lincicum
Education
- STM, Yale Divinity School
- BTh and MDiv, Bethlehem College & Seminary