Matthew D C Larsen
Biographic Data
| ID | 5646391 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Matthew D C Larsen |
| GIVEN NAMES | Matthew D C |
| FAMILY NAME | Larsen |
| SIGNATURE | LARSEN M D C |
| AFFILIATIONS | Yale University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-5251-6274 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 14 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 0 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 14 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2016 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2024 |
| H-INDEX | 0 |
Materiality of Incarceration in Mediterranean Antiquity
A Prison in Late Antique Corinth
This article aims to offer a secure identification of the “Boudroumi” and the Northwest Shops in the Roman Forum at ancient Corinth as a site of incarceration in the Late Antique period. The identification is made based on both prisoner graffiti from the 5th to 6th century ce inscribed on slabs and the notebooks from the Corinth Excavations in 1901, which clarify that the slabs were discovered in situ and served as floor pavement. The small finds…
The Publication of the Synoptics and the Problem of Dating
This essay discusses the problems related to discussion of the publication and dependence of the Synoptic Gospels, as traditionally conceived. It first considers the state of the field on issues related to publication and dependence, including a diagnosis of its key assumptive building blocks. It then notes the problems in the current framework for thinking about the publication and dependence of the Synoptic Gospels, locating the assumptive buil…
A Roman Military Prison at Lambaesis
This article identifies a military prison (carcer castrensis) in the Roman legionary fortress at Lambaesis (Tazoult, Algeria) and contextualizes the space among North African carceral practices evidenced in epigraphic, papyrological, and literary sources of the first through fourth centuries CE. The identification is made on the basis of architectural comparanda and previously unnoticed inscriptional evidence which demonstrate that the space unde…
The Real-and-Imagined Biography of a Gospel Manuscript
Dieser Artikel schildert die Objektbiographie des Codex Bobiensis, eines der ältesten Manuskripte des altlateinischen Evangeliums. In Anlehnung an das Konzept von Edward Soja wird die gleichermaßen reale und vorgestellte (»real-and-imagined«) Geschichte des Codex Bobiensis betrachtet und dabei berücksichtigt, was über den Kodex bekannt ist und was die Menschen während seiner gesamten Geschichte über ihn wissen konnten. Nachgezeichnet wird das »Le…
Carceral Practices and Geographies in Roman North Africa
I explore the landscape of carceral practices and geographies in late antique Roman North Africa by applying a comparative lens to carceral punishments of exile and condemnation to the mines. I situate the research within the field of carceral studies, using the concept of carceral practices and geographies (as opposed to the narrower concepts of prison and imprisonment). I first offer a contextualization of the punishments of exile and condemnat…
Gospels before the Book
What does it mean to read the gospels “before the book”? For centuries, the way people have talked about the gospels has been shaped by ideas that have more to do with the printing press and modern notions of the author than they do with ancient writing and reading practices. Gospels Before the Book challenges several subtle yet problematic assumptions about authors, books, and publication at work in early Christian studies. The author explores a…
Multiple Authorized Versions of the Same Work
Connected with ideas of textual unfinishedness and accidental publication is the reality that some works exist in multiple authorized versions. Chapter 4 looks at two examples from widely differing contexts in antiquity: Qumran and Herculaneum. The author explores the similarities and differences in the textual multiplicity of the Serekh texts (community rules) found at Qumran and the multiple versions of Philodemus’s works from the Herculaneum l…
Unfinished and Less Authored Texts
The concept of textual unfinishedness played a role in a wide variety of cultures and contexts across the Mediterranean basin in antiquity and late antiquity. Chapter 2 documents examples of Greek, Roman, and Jewish writers reflecting explicitly in their own words about unfinished texts. Many writers claimed to have written unfinished texts on purpose for specific cultural reasons, while others claimed to have written texts that slipped out of th…
Reading Gospels “Before the Book”
Concepts like author, book, and publication operate at a foundational level in scholarship on the gospels. Yet such ideas are culturally negotiated in each particular place and time, and there is no evidence of anyone’s thinking of the gospel as a book published by an author until the end of the second century. This chapter raises questions about what it would look like to read gospels “before the book.” It explores the history of concepts like p…
Epilogue
Approaching the Gospel according to Mark as unfinished notes, the author argues that literary critics do not “find” nuanced literary structure in the text. They produce it—not unlike what the Gospel according to Matthew does with the Gospel according to Mark. The author proposes a new methodological framework for future study of early Christian gospels. He points to an example from cultural history (Robert Darnton’s work on eighteenth-century Fre…
Accidental Publication and Postpublication Revision
Connected with textual unfinishedness are several concepts. Chapter 3 explores two such concepts and their connection to the idea of textual stability and authorial intentionality: accidental publication and postpublication revision. Unfinished texts often became what Larsen calls “accidentally published.” Publication was notional and social in antiquity, as the form of a published text would not necessarily differ from an unfinished one. The ide…
The Earliest Users of the Gospel according to Mark
Building on the perspective of earliest readers of the Gospel according to Mark, who treated it like hypomnēmata , chapter 6 investigates the earliest users of the Gospel according to Mark and seeks to describe the use they made of it in terms more native to the first- and second-century contexts. It argues the Gospel according to Matthew did not produce a new and separate book by a different author. Rather, the textual traditions we now call the…
Listening with the Body, Seeing through the Ears
This article compares Philo’s portrayal of the lecture event among the Therapeutae with other reading and philosophical communities throughout the high Roman Empire. It shows how learning to listen properly plays an important role in constructing and defending one’s masculinity in certain elite communities of that time. Philo constructs a portrayal of the Therapeutae that places them well within the social codes of lecture listening and proper ma…
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Listening with the Body, Seeing through the Ears
This article compares Philo’s portrayal of the lecture event among the Therapeutae with other reading and philosophical communities throughout the high Roman Empire. It shows how learning to listen properly plays an important role in constructing and defending one’s masculinity in certain elite communities of that time. Philo constructs a portrayal of the Therapeutae that places them well within the social codes of lecture listening and proper ma…
Gospels before the Book
What does it mean to read the gospels “before the book”? For centuries, the way people have talked about the gospels has been shaped by ideas that have more to do with the printing press and modern notions of the author than they do with ancient writing and reading practices. Gospels Before the Book challenges several subtle yet problematic assumptions about authors, books, and publication at work in early Christian studies. The author explores a…
Multiple Authorized Versions of the Same Work
Connected with ideas of textual unfinishedness and accidental publication is the reality that some works exist in multiple authorized versions. Chapter 4 looks at two examples from widely differing contexts in antiquity: Qumran and Herculaneum. The author explores the similarities and differences in the textual multiplicity of the Serekh texts (community rules) found at Qumran and the multiple versions of Philodemus’s works from the Herculaneum l…
Unfinished and Less Authored Texts
The concept of textual unfinishedness played a role in a wide variety of cultures and contexts across the Mediterranean basin in antiquity and late antiquity. Chapter 2 documents examples of Greek, Roman, and Jewish writers reflecting explicitly in their own words about unfinished texts. Many writers claimed to have written unfinished texts on purpose for specific cultural reasons, while others claimed to have written texts that slipped out of th…
Reading Gospels “Before the Book”
Concepts like author, book, and publication operate at a foundational level in scholarship on the gospels. Yet such ideas are culturally negotiated in each particular place and time, and there is no evidence of anyone’s thinking of the gospel as a book published by an author until the end of the second century. This chapter raises questions about what it would look like to read gospels “before the book.” It explores the history of concepts like p…
Epilogue
Approaching the Gospel according to Mark as unfinished notes, the author argues that literary critics do not “find” nuanced literary structure in the text. They produce it—not unlike what the Gospel according to Matthew does with the Gospel according to Mark. The author proposes a new methodological framework for future study of early Christian gospels. He points to an example from cultural history (Robert Darnton’s work on eighteenth-century Fre…
Accidental Publication and Postpublication Revision
Connected with textual unfinishedness are several concepts. Chapter 3 explores two such concepts and their connection to the idea of textual stability and authorial intentionality: accidental publication and postpublication revision. Unfinished texts often became what Larsen calls “accidentally published.” Publication was notional and social in antiquity, as the form of a published text would not necessarily differ from an unfinished one. The ide…
The Earliest Users of the Gospel according to Mark
Building on the perspective of earliest readers of the Gospel according to Mark, who treated it like hypomnēmata , chapter 6 investigates the earliest users of the Gospel according to Mark and seeks to describe the use they made of it in terms more native to the first- and second-century contexts. It argues the Gospel according to Matthew did not produce a new and separate book by a different author. Rather, the textual traditions we now call the…
Carceral Practices and Geographies in Roman North Africa
I explore the landscape of carceral practices and geographies in late antique Roman North Africa by applying a comparative lens to carceral punishments of exile and condemnation to the mines. I situate the research within the field of carceral studies, using the concept of carceral practices and geographies (as opposed to the narrower concepts of prison and imprisonment). I first offer a contextualization of the punishments of exile and condemnat…
A Roman Military Prison at Lambaesis
This article identifies a military prison (carcer castrensis) in the Roman legionary fortress at Lambaesis (Tazoult, Algeria) and contextualizes the space among North African carceral practices evidenced in epigraphic, papyrological, and literary sources of the first through fourth centuries CE. The identification is made on the basis of architectural comparanda and previously unnoticed inscriptional evidence which demonstrate that the space unde…
The Real-and-Imagined Biography of a Gospel Manuscript
Dieser Artikel schildert die Objektbiographie des Codex Bobiensis, eines der ältesten Manuskripte des altlateinischen Evangeliums. In Anlehnung an das Konzept von Edward Soja wird die gleichermaßen reale und vorgestellte (»real-and-imagined«) Geschichte des Codex Bobiensis betrachtet und dabei berücksichtigt, was über den Kodex bekannt ist und was die Menschen während seiner gesamten Geschichte über ihn wissen konnten. Nachgezeichnet wird das »Le…
The Publication of the Synoptics and the Problem of Dating
This essay discusses the problems related to discussion of the publication and dependence of the Synoptic Gospels, as traditionally conceived. It first considers the state of the field on issues related to publication and dependence, including a diagnosis of its key assumptive building blocks. It then notes the problems in the current framework for thinking about the publication and dependence of the Synoptic Gospels, locating the assumptive buil…
Materiality of Incarceration in Mediterranean Antiquity
A Prison in Late Antique Corinth
This article aims to offer a secure identification of the “Boudroumi” and the Northwest Shops in the Roman Forum at ancient Corinth as a site of incarceration in the Late Antique period. The identification is made based on both prisoner graffiti from the 5th to 6th century ce inscribed on slabs and the notebooks from the Corinth Excavations in 1901, which clarify that the slabs were discovered in situ and served as floor pavement. The small finds…
History (13 works) · Art (11 works) · Literature (9 works) · Philosophy (8 works) · Classical Antiquity Studies (7 works) · Historical and Linguistic Studies (7 works) · Biblical Studies and Interpretation (6 works) · Archaeology (5 works) · Archaeology and Historical Studies (5 works) · Linguistics (5 works)