J. Albert Harrill

Professor Harrill studies and teaches the early Jewish and Greco-Roman environment of Christian origins in order to interpret the New Testament writings in their ancient context.  He approaches the New Testament less from the idea of canon and more from the wider historical perspective of classical culture and Roman imperial society. Unlike other scholars who separate early Christianity from classical culture and compare the two "social worlds" to see how they are alike and how they differ, Professor Harrill studies early Christianity as fully a part of and implicated in the Greco-Roman world.