ºÚ°µ±¬ÁÏÍø

Associate Professor Stephen Carlson

Biblical and Early Christian Studies
IRCI

Areas of expertise: new testament; christian origins; hellenistic greek; textual criticism; papias of hierapolis

Phone: +61 (3) 9953 3991

Email: stephen.carlson@acu.edu.au

Location: ºÚ°µ±¬ÁÏÍø Melbourne Campus

ORCID ID:

Dr Stephen C. Carlson is Associate Professor in the Biblical and Early Christian Studies program. After earning his PhD in New Testament from Duke University, he was a postdoctoral research fellow in Pre-Constantinian Christianity at Uppsala University in Sweden prior to coming to ºÚ°µ±¬ÁÏÍø in 2014. He is the author of three books, The Gospel Hoax, which debunked the "Secret Gospel of Mark"; The Text of Galatians and its History, which applied state-of-the-art computer phylogenetic software he wrote himself to produce a family tree of ninety-two manuscripts and witnesses of Galatians; and Papias of Hierapolis, the most complete edition of the fragments of Papias of Hierapolis, a second-century Christian commentator. He is also the author of numerous peer-reviewed journal articles, including those on the so-called "inn" in Luke's infancy account and the donkeys in Matthew's triumphal entry.

Select publications

• Papias of Hierapolis, Exposition of Dominical Oracles: The Fragments, Testimonia, and Reception of a Second-Century Commentator. Oxford Early Christian Texts (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021), x + 381 pp.
• The Gospel Hoax: Morton Smith’s Invention of Secret Mark. (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2005), xix + 151 pp.
• “Rufinus’s Version of Eusebius’s Origen and the Politics of Martyrdom,” Journal of Early Christian Studies (forthcoming 2023), with Michael Hanaghan.
• “A Bias at the Heart of the Coherence-Based Genealogical Method (CBGM),” Journal of Biblical Literature 139 (2020): 319-340.
• “‘The Jenny and the Colt’ in Matthew’s Messianic Entry, Part II: Matthew 21:7 as a Reading of Mark 11:7 in Light of Zechariah 9:9,” Catholic Biblical Quarterly 81 (2019): 235-251.
• “‘The Jenny and the Colt’ in Matthew’s Messianic Entry, Part I: Matthew 21:5 as a Reading of Zechariah 9:9 in Light of Mark 11:1-10,” Catholic Biblical Quarterly 81 (2019): 62-84.
• “The Reception of the Watchers in Tertullian with regard to 1 Cor 11.2-16,” in The Reception of Jewish Traditions in the Social Construction of Early Christianity, eds. John Barclay and Kylie Crabbe; Receptions of Jesus in the First Three Centuries 8 (London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2021), 47-60.
• “Rufinus’s Origenization of Eusebius in his Translation of the Historia ecclesiastica,” in Perspectives on Origen in the History of his Reception, ed., Alfons Fürst, Adamantiana 21 (Münster: Aschendorff, 2021), 151-160.
• “The Fragments of Papias,” in Cambridge Companion to the Apostolic Fathers, eds., Michael F. Bird and Scott D. Harrower (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021), 332-350.
• “Papias’s Appeal to the ‘Living and Lasting Voice’ over Books” in Rise of the Early Christian Intellectual, ed. Lewis O. Ayres and H. Clifton Ward, AZT 139 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2020), 25-44.

Projects

• Flourishing in Early Christianity, CI (2022-present) , ºÚ°µ±¬ÁÏÍøRF
• Text, Traditions, and Early Christian Identities, CI (2017-2021), ºÚ°µ±¬ÁÏÍøRF

Appointments and Affiliations

• Society of Biblical Literature (SBL)
• Society for New Testament Studies (SNTS)
• SBL Steering Committee for New Testament Textual Criticism (2012-2023)
• SBL Steering Committee for Synoptic Gospels (2012-2023)

Editorial roles

• Editorial board member, Journal of Biblical Literature, (2020-)

Public engagement activities

• Radio interview, "Why does the Vatican care about AI?" on ABC Religion and Ethics Report (23 Feb. 2023, 6pm AEDT), .
• "A Bridge Between East and West: The Significance of Saint Irenaeus of Lyon," ABC Religion & Ethics, [31 Jan 2022]. Online: