I continue here with my discussion of the book of 1 Clement, probably unknown to many people on the blog, but an important work written at about the time of some of some of the writings of the New Testament – or so I’ll be arguing in the post after this.  First I need to say something about the author.  Why is it attributed to someone named Clement?   Could this really have been written by a first-century pope (i.e., the Bishop of the church in Rome)? Again, I am taking this information from the Introduction to the letter, which I give in a new English translation (with the Greek text on the facing page) in the first volume of my Apostolic Fathers in the Loeb Classical Library (Harvard University Press, 2003). ****************************** The Author of the Book Even though the letter claims to be written by the “church ... residing in Rome,” it has from early times been attributed to Clement, a leader of the Roman church near the end of the [...]

From Jen: You've hopefully heard the big news by now. After more than three decades of teaching, Bart will soon step away from the classroom. (But don't worry, he's not stepping away from the blog!) This December marks his retirement from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where generations of students have sat in those lecture halls, scribbling notes while Bart brought the ancient world vividly to life. To honor that extraordinary career, Bart will return to the UNC campus one last time to deliver a final public lecture: “The Greatest Discovery in the History of Biblical Studies” When: Sunday, December 7, 2025, 5:00 pm Where: UNC Chapel Hill (Building  TBA) Free and open to the public (registration required) It’s hard to overstate what this moment represents. Bart has spent his life teaching others how to read the New Testament with both rigor and curiosity, stripping away assumptions to see what the texts actually say. This will be his final time doing so in a UNC classroom; the space that shaped so much of his work and [...]