About Laura Nasrallah

Laura Nasrallah

Laura Nasrallah is the Buckingham Professor of New Testament Criticism and Interpretation at Yale University (Department of Religious Studies and Yale Divinity School). Her research and teaching bring together New Testament and early Christian literature with the archaeological remains of the Mediterranean world, and often engage issues of colonialism, gender, race, status, and power. Her books include An Ecstasy of Folly: Prophecy and Authority in Early Christianity (Harvard University Press, 2004), Christian Responses to Roman Art and Architecture: The Second-Century Church Amid the Spaces of Empire (Cambridge University Press, 2010), and Archaeology and the Letters of Paul (Oxford University Press, 2019; paperback, 2021). She is also co-editor, with Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza, of Prejudice and Christian Beginnings: Investigating Race, Gender, and Ethnicity in Early Christian Studies (Fortress Press, 2009); with Charalambos Bakirtzis and Steven J. Friesen, of From Roman to Early Christian Thessalonikē: Studies in Religion and Archaeology (Harvard University Press, 2010), and, with AnneMarie Luijendijk and Charalambos Bakirtzis, of From Roman to Early Christian Cyprus: Studies in Religion and Archaeology (Mohr Siebeck, 2020). She is currently working on a book titled Rethinking Religion and Aesthetics: “Magic,” Materiality, Language, and Ancient Christianity.


Presenter at

Bible & Archaeology Fest XXIV, October 16 – 17, 2021
What Can Archaeology Tell Us About the Letters of Paul?

Archaeological finds can’t help us to reconstruct much precisely about Paul, but they are essential to reconstructing the communities that received letters from Paul and his co-writers. This lecture takes us deep into Roman Corinth to understand the kinds of social, political, and religious pressures on those who lived in this town—including enslavement, women’s leadership, and religious rituals that were sometimes labelled as magic.


Selected Articles by Laura Nasrallah