This dissertation is largely a project of redescription and taxonomy. In it, I redescribe, reclassify, and recontextualize the divinatory practices of the apostle Paul. Throughout …
"'Inflamed by Daily Practices': John Cassian and Ethical Formation" is the first inter-disciplinary treatment of the ethical program fostered by the fifth-century Christian ascetic John …
This dissertation is a detailed study of ethics in the second-century BCE text Huainanzi, and its implications for our understanding of classical Daoist ethics in …
In "'You Divided Sea by Your Might': The 'Conflict Myth' and the Biblical Tradition," I analyze the ancient west Asian theme of divine combat between …
Interpreters of Thomas Hobbes take two distinctive approaches to his views on religion, either rendering God foundational to his vision or giving primacy to human …
This study investigates how and why Tunisia’s 2014 Constitution describes the nation as both an Islamic and civil state, and what effect this duality has …
"Apostolic Memories: Religious Differentiation and the Construction of Orthodoxy in Syriac Missionary Literature" is a dissertation project on Syriac hagiography and apocryphal narrative. I argue …
This study examines evidence from approximately the mid-1C BCE − 1C CE for varieties of freelance religious experts at Rome, a period within which they …
This thesis examines the rituals surrounding Christian relics and reliquaries of the Early and High Middle Ages. I argue that relic rituals engaged both the …
This work seeks to explain the recurrent doubt and misunderstanding of, and hostility towards, naturalistic, Darwinian evolutionary accounts of the origins and development of living …
This dissertation explores how Israelites regarded foreign lands, relates this to the debate about biblical categorizations of pollution and purification, and points to larger questions …
Abstract of “Gaining Virtue, Gaining Christ: Moral Development in the Letters of Paul,” by Laura B. Dingeldein, Ph.D., Brown University, May 2014 Inhabitants of the …
In this thesis, I investigate how women are challenging clericalism in the contemporary Roman Catholic Church by illuminating a small cohort of Catholic women in …
This thesis is an examination of hospital spiritual care in Rhode Island during the COVID-19 pandemic, based on qualitative interviews with ten Rhode Island-based chaplains …
This thesis explores the ways that three Protestant groups: selected Mainline denominations, the Poor People's Campaign, and the Institute for Christian Socialism, read the Bible …
Can religious literacy be imparted to the general public on a national scale using scripted, fictional television? This author asserts that it can and discusses …