Indiegogo for the Roman Army and the New Testament

[ChrisZeichmann]

Good morning, everyone! I have just launched an Indiegogo campaign to make a free website to aid in the study of the military and the New Testament.  I recently completed my Ph.D. in the New Testament, with a dissertation on the military in the Gospel of Mark. Though the Roman Empire is a hot topic at the moment in biblical studies, experts are strangely silent on the military in particular.  I hope to help rectify that by creating a website that will be of widespread interest.

The website will have lots of neat features:

• Searchable collection of all known inscriptions and papyri concerning the military and Palestine 63 BC-132 AD, in their original language and English translation. Each will have a bibliography and a brief commentary on its significance.  There are roughly 300 such texts.
  
• All inscriptions concerning Christians in the Roman army before Constantine's reign (306 AD).
  
• A map and gazetteer of all military sites in early Roman Palestine, noting when they were used.
  
• Cameo essays by experts on how literary sources (Josephus, rabbinic writings, Philo of Alexandria, Tacitus, Eusebius, etc.) can aid the study of the military in early Roman Palestine.
  
• Regular updates to include the latest archaeological finds!
  

Moreover, this will help create materials necessary for my upcoming book, tentatively titled The Roman Army and the New Testament.  This book aims to be both useful for academics and accessible to interested non-specialists - especially ministers, educated laity, and military enthusiasts. The book will cover a range of topics, including the demographics of the military in New Testament times, the role of the military in early Roman Palestine, and discussion of every single instance the military appears in the New Testament.


I hope you'll consider contributing!  I would be happy to take any suggestions and answer any questions!
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/onlin.../2490730#/

[Julian de Vries]

So, something like for example: Kyrychenko, Alexander The Roman Army and the Expansion of the Gospel The Role of the Centurion in Luke-Acts?

Well, it would be best to focus on the apocrypha and martyr stories, and also on the Coptic and Syriac texts.

I am curious though, why did you set the end – date to 132 AD?

[ChrisZeichmann]

Hi Julian,

There's some similarities to Kyrychenko's work - Laurena Ann Brink has published a book on the military in Luke-Acts as well.  Both of which are excellent.  There are some significant differences, too: these works are limited to two books of the bible, they are mostly interested in literary tropes whereas this book will be social historical, they don't interact too much with the archaeological, epigraphic, and papyrological record of Early Roman Palestine.  Consequently, the new book will have material about recruitment, demographics, military policies, etc. specific to Palestine that are not found in these works.  Moreover, one of the efforts of the present book is to understand how the depiction of the military by different NT writers is specific to their situation (e.g., Mark in Galilee c. 70 CE, Matthew in Antioch c. 90 CE, Luke-Acts in Ephesus c. 115 CE).  Finally, accessibility is a major factor in the new book, not just in terms of readability, but price as well (the cost of the Kyrychenko and Brink volumes mean that mostly research libraries will have them). I hope this clarifies some of the differences.

The database itself will hopefully have a lot of different cameo essays on literary sources; it would certainly be worth having an essay on each of Josephus' historical works, Eusebius has plenty to offer, as to rabbinic writings.  What specifically was coming to mind for you with the Syriac materials?  I admit it's not a corpus I'm very familiar with.

I opted for 132 CE because the database would become unwieldy for one person to make with the inclusion of materials corresponding to the military increase during the Bar Kokhba War.

Let me know if there's anything else I can clarify!

[Julian de Vries]

Hi Chris Zeichmann,

Good luck embarking on your grand project. I did not find much concerning the timeframe 63 BC – 132 AD: but maybe this is because of a difference in the area of focus ( I am searching for Roman army numbers).There are myriads of Christian texts after your terminus.

For example I recently found a reference to 500 cavalry:

HISTORY OF THE PATRIARCHS OF THE  COPTIC CHURCH OF ALEXANDRIA

http://www.tertullian.org/fathers/severu..._part2.htm

CHAPTER VIII ATHANASIUS I, THE APOSTOLIC, THE TWENTIETH PATRIARCH. A. D. 326-373.

For the prince gave to George five hundred horsemen of his army, and sent them with him, that they might make him patriarch of Alexandria.

And after seven years a man came whose name was Gregory, with whom were two thousand men who were soldiers.

*

A suggestion to extend the timeframe to at least Nicaea is in order, but perhaps this is not the right thing for me to say…

Here is something I discovered for your timeframe:

Eudokia of Heliopolis 1 March 107 AD
VITA ET PASSIO
Sanctæ Martyris
EVDOCIÆ SAMARITANÆ
E Græco Codice Vaticano
Interprete Petro Possino Soc. Iesu.
Eudocia Martyr, Heliopoli in Phœnicia Libani (S.)

CAPVT XI.
Sumpsit is secum milites trecentos: qui cum se in viam darent, [misso cum 300 militibus Comite:]
Vt ergo peruenit cum sua cohorte Comes ad Parthenonis Eudociæ conspectum, [Ipsa in somnis voce diuina confirmata:] contentus notasse locum quoad lux fuit, militem in manus varias distribuit per certas stationes, vnde

CAPVT XII.
Vnde in eam nouo stimulo incitatus Diogenes, quinquaginta milites expedit

You say: Finally, accessibility is a major factor in the new book, not just in terms of readability, but price as well (the cost of the Kyrychenko and Brink volumes mean that mostly research libraries will have them)…What specifically was coming to mind for you with the Syriac materials?  I admit it's not a corpus I'm very familiar with.

I guess sometimes ignorance is bliss! I have enormous difficulty trying to acquire the Gorgias Press books. (For example:  The Chronography of Bar Hebraeus and the Julian Romance, and those are not even the obscure Syriac works.)

I hope to find one day on your website a righteous essay concerning the spiritual armor of the book of Ephesians.
 
Oh, and if you find any information on the primi ordines, superiores ordines, inferiores ordines, and infimi ordines, that would be great.

[ChrisZeichmann]

Thanks for the suggestions! There's pretty limited stuff on the number of soldiers in Palestine for that period - Josephus has the bulk of it. I've got about 300 inscriptions and papyri either found in early Roman Palestine (i.e., 63 BCE-132 CE, including Judaea, Ascalon, Batanaea, Galilee, and the Decapolis) or concerning Jews or other Palestinians and the early Roman army. This includes aqueduct inscriptions, bread stamps, lots of epigraphs and epitaphs, diplomas of units in Palestine and recruited from Palestine, papyri, etc. These - along with all pre-Constantinian Christian military inscriptions - will be posted both in the original language (though Safaitic inscriptions will be transliterated due to its irregular characters and boustrephedon) and English translation on the website. I would obviously encourage you to contribute to get early access to the material in a few weeks, but it will be free to the public on the site when it has its hard launch early next year.

And yes, there is a discussion of Ephesians in the book!