Brent Nongbri
Biographic Data
| ID | 3095412 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Brent Nongbri |
| GIVEN NAMES | Brent |
| FAMILY NAME | Nongbri |
| SIGNATURE | NONGBRI B |
| AFFILIATIONS | MF Norwegian School of Theology, Religion and Society |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-8423-2973 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 21 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 21 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 21 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2005 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 1 |
The Antinoopolis Charioteers Papyrus
This essay argues that the illustrated papyrus fragment known as the ‘Antinoopolis charioteers’ is a folium from a codex containing an episode from the Alexander Romance . The few letters on both sides of the papyrus neatly align with the text of a chariot racing episode present in some versions of the Alexander Romance . The identification of the text in turn sheds light on the lost portions of the illustration and the codicology of the manuscri…
A Papyrus Codex of the Pauline Corpus from Oxyrhynchus
P.Oxy. 7.1008 and 7.1009 (P15 and P16 in the INTF’s Kurzgefasste Liste ) preserve portions of 1Cor 7–8 and Phil 3–4. Since the time of their publication, these two fragmentary papyrus folia have had an ambiguous relationship. They are often considered parts of the same codex, but the INTF treats them as distinct manuscripts. A reconsideration of the published scholarship on the folia combined with access to improved digital images allows for a mo…
Novum Testamentum Graecum
Galen and the Parchment Codex
The publication in 2007 of a complete text of Galen’s De indolentia has stimulated a renewed interest in Galen as a source for Roman book culture, especially the early history of the codex. One phrase at De indolentia 33 is particularly important in these discussions, διφθέρας πυκτάς (“fist-sized parchments”). In 2010, the Budé edition of De indolentia emended this phrase to read διφθέρας π υκτάς (“folded parchments”). This note argues that the e…
A Papyrus Codex of Paul’s Letters in Greek
This article revisits the question of whether P65 ( PSI XIV 1373) and P49 (P.Yale I 2 + II 86) should be considered as parts of two different codices or part of a single codex containing a collection of Paul’s letters. While the similarity of the scripts of these two manuscripts has long been recognized, the two fragments have not been subjected to a thorough codicological comparison. This article examines the scripts of P65 and P49, selected scr…
Manuscripts
Studies seeking to elucidate the Synoptic Problem, the issue of literary dependence among the Synoptic Gospels, often proceed by making close comparisons among the Synoptic Gospels that rely on the idea that the text of each of these Gospels is fixed. Yet when one turns to the actual manuscripts preserving the Gospels, one finds instead fluid texts with significant variation. Textual critics of the New Testament have attempted to sort through the…
The Construction and Contents of the Beatty-Michigan Pauline Epistles Codex (P46)
The surviving portion of the papyrus codex of the letters of Paul split between the Chester Beatty Library and the University of Michigan (P46) consists of a well preserved but damaged single quire containing parts of nine of Paul’s letters. Because the pages of the codex are numbered, scholars have believed that it is possible to reconstruct the original size of the quire, which turns out to be too small for the traditional Pauline corpus of fou…
How the “Jerusalem Scrolls” Became the Dead Sea Scrolls from Qumran Cave 1
Seven animal hide scrolls with Hebrew and Aramaic writing were sold in Jerusalem in 1947. Additional smaller fragments of similar scrolls were sold from 1948 to 1950. Within a few years of their appearance, these “Jerusalem Scrolls” as they were then known, became “the Dead Sea Scrolls from Qumran Cave 1.” While this change of names may seem trivial, it glosses over some difficult questions about the provenance of these materials. What we now cal…
Testing Ground for Jesuit Accommodation in Early Modern India
Palaeography, Precision and Publicity
P.Ryl. iii .457, a papyrus fragment of the gospel of John known to New Testament scholars as P52, is regularly publicised as the earliest extant Christian manuscript and forms a central part of the Rylands collection. Yet the date generally assigned to the fragment (‘about 125 ad ’) is based entirely on palaeography, or analysis of handwriting, which cannot provide such a precise date. The present article introduces new details about the acquisit…
British Women Missionaries in Bengal, 1793–1861, written by Sutapa Dutta
P.Bodmer 2 as Possible Evidence for the Circulation of the Gospel according to John without Chapter 21
»Vielmehr bietet [der Kommentar] auf höchstem Niveau eine substantielle Auseinandersetzung mit den Hintergründen, den Zusammenhängen, der Theorie und der Praxis des Grundgesetzes. Besseres lässt sich von einem Verfassungskommentar nicht sagen.“ Herbert Günther Staaatsanzeiger für das Land Hessen 2018 (50), 1494–1495
The Unplaced Fragments of P.Bodmer ii (P66)
Based on autopsy inspection of the fragmentary leaves of P.Bodmer ii (P66), this article assesses previous efforts to properly position the fragments of P.Bodmer ii that were left unplaced in the initial publication of the codex and offers new suggestions for placements.
Before Religion
For much of the past two centuries, religion has been understood as a universal phenomenon, a part of the “natural” human experience that is essentially the same across cultures and throughout history. Individual religions may vary through time and geographically, but there is an element, religion, that is to be found in all cultures during all time periods. Taking apart this assumption, Brent Nongbri shows that the idea of religion as a sphere o…
The “Proper” Way to Study Religion
This brief response contextualizes Robert A. Segal's review of Before Religion in this journal
Archival Research on the Excavation of the Synagogue at Ostia
This report outlines preliminary findings from an examination of unpublished materials relating to excavations of the ancient synagogue at Ostia carried out from 1961 to 1964 and in 1977 by Maria Floriani Squarciapino. Taken in tandem with Floriani Squarciapino’s publications on the synagogue, this material (entries in the excavation journal coupled with labels for excavated artifacts, archival photographs, and drawings) allows a partial reconstr…
Before Religion
For much of the past two centuries, religion has been understood as a universal phenomenon, a part of the “natural” human experience that is essentially the same across cultures and throughout history. Individual religions may vary through time and geographically, but there is an element, religion, that is to be found in all cultures during all time periods. Taking apart this assumption, this book shows that the idea of religion as a sphere of li…
Deisidaimonia
The Greek term deisidaimonia may be roughly translated as “fear of the divine.” The semantic range of the word in Greek literature runs from “appropriate fear of the divine” to “excessive (and thus inappropriate) fear of the divine.”
The Lord's Prayer and ΧΜΓ
The last few years have seen a renewed interest in the study of papyrological remains as a means of shedding light on early Christianity. 1 To add further evidence to this discussion, I draw attention to two papyri in Yale University's Beinecke Library. In 1997, Yale acquired several papyri from Galerie Nefer in Zürich. The lot contained papyri ranging in date from the Ptolemaic era to the Medieval period. Two of these pieces (both, unfortunately…
Dislodging "Embedded" Religion
Scholars of ancient cultures are increasingly speaking of the "embeddedness" of ancient religion — arguing that the practices modern investigators group under the heading of "religion" did not compose a well-defined category in antiquity; instead, they claim that "religion was embedded" in other aspects of ancient culture. These writers use this notion of "embeddedness" to help us see that categories post-Enlightenment thinkers often regard as di…
The Use and Abuse of P 52
The thesis of this paper is simple: we as critical readers of the New Testament often use John Rylands Greek Papyrus 3.457, also known as P 52 , ininappropriate ways, and we should stop doing so. A recent example will illustrate the problem. In what is on the whole a superb commentary on John's gospel, D. Moody Smith writes the following about the date of John: For a time, particularly in the early part of the twentieth century, the possibility t…
Dislodging "Embedded" Religion
Scholars of ancient cultures are increasingly speaking of the "embeddedness" of ancient religion — arguing that the practices modern investigators group under the heading of "religion" did not compose a well-defined category in antiquity; instead, they claim that "religion was embedded" in other aspects of ancient culture. These writers use this notion of "embeddedness" to help us see that categories post-Enlightenment thinkers often regard as di…
The Use and Abuse of P 52
The thesis of this paper is simple: we as critical readers of the New Testament often use John Rylands Greek Papyrus 3.457, also known as P 52 , ininappropriate ways, and we should stop doing so. A recent example will illustrate the problem. In what is on the whole a superb commentary on John's gospel, D. Moody Smith writes the following about the date of John: For a time, particularly in the early part of the twentieth century, the possibility t…
Dislodging "Embedded" Religion
Scholars of ancient cultures are increasingly speaking of the "embeddedness" of ancient religion — arguing that the practices modern investigators group under the heading of "religion" did not compose a well-defined category in antiquity; instead, they claim that "religion was embedded" in other aspects of ancient culture. These writers use this notion of "embeddedness" to help us see that categories post-Enlightenment thinkers often regard as di…
The Lord's Prayer and ΧΜΓ
The last few years have seen a renewed interest in the study of papyrological remains as a means of shedding light on early Christianity. 1 To add further evidence to this discussion, I draw attention to two papyri in Yale University's Beinecke Library. In 1997, Yale acquired several papyri from Galerie Nefer in Zürich. The lot contained papyri ranging in date from the Ptolemaic era to the Medieval period. Two of these pieces (both, unfortunately…
Deisidaimonia
The Greek term deisidaimonia may be roughly translated as “fear of the divine.” The semantic range of the word in Greek literature runs from “appropriate fear of the divine” to “excessive (and thus inappropriate) fear of the divine.”
Before Religion
For much of the past two centuries, religion has been understood as a universal phenomenon, a part of the “natural” human experience that is essentially the same across cultures and throughout history. Individual religions may vary through time and geographically, but there is an element, religion, that is to be found in all cultures during all time periods. Taking apart this assumption, this book shows that the idea of religion as a sphere of li…
Archival Research on the Excavation of the Synagogue at Ostia
This report outlines preliminary findings from an examination of unpublished materials relating to excavations of the ancient synagogue at Ostia carried out from 1961 to 1964 and in 1977 by Maria Floriani Squarciapino. Taken in tandem with Floriani Squarciapino’s publications on the synagogue, this material (entries in the excavation journal coupled with labels for excavated artifacts, archival photographs, and drawings) allows a partial reconstr…
Before Religion
For much of the past two centuries, religion has been understood as a universal phenomenon, a part of the “natural” human experience that is essentially the same across cultures and throughout history. Individual religions may vary through time and geographically, but there is an element, religion, that is to be found in all cultures during all time periods. Taking apart this assumption, Brent Nongbri shows that the idea of religion as a sphere o…
The “Proper” Way to Study Religion
This brief response contextualizes Robert A. Segal's review of Before Religion in this journal
P.Bodmer 2 as Possible Evidence for the Circulation of the Gospel according to John without Chapter 21
»Vielmehr bietet [der Kommentar] auf höchstem Niveau eine substantielle Auseinandersetzung mit den Hintergründen, den Zusammenhängen, der Theorie und der Praxis des Grundgesetzes. Besseres lässt sich von einem Verfassungskommentar nicht sagen.“ Herbert Günther Staaatsanzeiger für das Land Hessen 2018 (50), 1494–1495
The Unplaced Fragments of P.Bodmer ii (P66)
Based on autopsy inspection of the fragmentary leaves of P.Bodmer ii (P66), this article assesses previous efforts to properly position the fragments of P.Bodmer ii that were left unplaced in the initial publication of the codex and offers new suggestions for placements.
British Women Missionaries in Bengal, 1793–1861, written by Sutapa Dutta
Palaeography, Precision and Publicity
P.Ryl. iii .457, a papyrus fragment of the gospel of John known to New Testament scholars as P52, is regularly publicised as the earliest extant Christian manuscript and forms a central part of the Rylands collection. Yet the date generally assigned to the fragment (‘about 125 ad ’) is based entirely on palaeography, or analysis of handwriting, which cannot provide such a precise date. The present article introduces new details about the acquisit…
Testing Ground for Jesuit Accommodation in Early Modern India
The Construction and Contents of the Beatty-Michigan Pauline Epistles Codex (P46)
The surviving portion of the papyrus codex of the letters of Paul split between the Chester Beatty Library and the University of Michigan (P46) consists of a well preserved but damaged single quire containing parts of nine of Paul’s letters. Because the pages of the codex are numbered, scholars have believed that it is possible to reconstruct the original size of the quire, which turns out to be too small for the traditional Pauline corpus of fou…
How the “Jerusalem Scrolls” Became the Dead Sea Scrolls from Qumran Cave 1
Seven animal hide scrolls with Hebrew and Aramaic writing were sold in Jerusalem in 1947. Additional smaller fragments of similar scrolls were sold from 1948 to 1950. Within a few years of their appearance, these “Jerusalem Scrolls” as they were then known, became “the Dead Sea Scrolls from Qumran Cave 1.” While this change of names may seem trivial, it glosses over some difficult questions about the provenance of these materials. What we now cal…
Manuscripts
Studies seeking to elucidate the Synoptic Problem, the issue of literary dependence among the Synoptic Gospels, often proceed by making close comparisons among the Synoptic Gospels that rely on the idea that the text of each of these Gospels is fixed. Yet when one turns to the actual manuscripts preserving the Gospels, one finds instead fluid texts with significant variation. Textual critics of the New Testament have attempted to sort through the…
A Papyrus Codex of Paul’s Letters in Greek
This article revisits the question of whether P65 ( PSI XIV 1373) and P49 (P.Yale I 2 + II 86) should be considered as parts of two different codices or part of a single codex containing a collection of Paul’s letters. While the similarity of the scripts of these two manuscripts has long been recognized, the two fragments have not been subjected to a thorough codicological comparison. This article examines the scripts of P65 and P49, selected scr…
Novum Testamentum Graecum
Galen and the Parchment Codex
The publication in 2007 of a complete text of Galen’s De indolentia has stimulated a renewed interest in Galen as a source for Roman book culture, especially the early history of the codex. One phrase at De indolentia 33 is particularly important in these discussions, διφθέρας πυκτάς (“fist-sized parchments”). In 2010, the Budé edition of De indolentia emended this phrase to read διφθέρας π υκτάς (“folded parchments”). This note argues that the e…
The Antinoopolis Charioteers Papyrus
This essay argues that the illustrated papyrus fragment known as the ‘Antinoopolis charioteers’ is a folium from a codex containing an episode from the Alexander Romance . The few letters on both sides of the papyrus neatly align with the text of a chariot racing episode present in some versions of the Alexander Romance . The identification of the text in turn sheds light on the lost portions of the illustration and the codicology of the manuscri…
A Papyrus Codex of the Pauline Corpus from Oxyrhynchus
P.Oxy. 7.1008 and 7.1009 (P15 and P16 in the INTF’s Kurzgefasste Liste ) preserve portions of 1Cor 7–8 and Phil 3–4. Since the time of their publication, these two fragmentary papyrus folia have had an ambiguous relationship. They are often considered parts of the same codex, but the INTF treats them as distinct manuscripts. A reconsideration of the published scholarship on the folia combined with access to improved digital images allows for a mo…
History (16 works) · Philosophy (16 works) · Art (11 works) · Historical and Linguistic Studies (9 works) · Theology (9 works) · Biblical Studies and Interpretation (8 works) · Archaeology (7 works) · Historical, Religious, and Philosophical Studies (7 works) · Classics (6 works) · Literature (6 works)