Journal for Interdisciplinary Biblical Studies

Finally, I offer other use cases for using interactive fiction in the religious studies classroom.

I present ethical considerations in both designing and playing the game, such as taking seriously the agency of disenfranchised populations, presenting varieties of early Christianities, and developing historical empathy.

In this article, I present the learning objectives achieved by the game: introducing the rich historical context of 50 CE; introducing key teachers and teachings of earliest Christianity; and introducing crucial historiographical questions like “How does one tell history?”

Abstract: “Bringing early Christianity to life” is a worthy goal, but it is worthier when buttressed by more specific learning objectives. A text-based choose-your-own-adventure-style game, Writing to Paul, invites students to explore the first decades of earliest Christianity.

Now published! Sarah F. Porter (@portersf.bsky.social), “Writing to Paul: Using Interactive Fiction to Explore Early Christian Worlds.” tinyurl.com/PorterWritin...

I have an article out with @jibs-journal.bsky.social! A little insight into some of my PhD research, thank you so much to JIBS for their guidance and accepting my article, I am over the moon☺️

Newly Discovered Pompeii Frescoes Reveal a Different—Wild—Side of Ancient Roman Women “[It’s] a metaphor for a wild, ecstatic life."

Frescoes in Pompeii Reveal the Secret World of Dionysiac Rituals
mymodernmet.com/casa-tiaso-f...

We are pleased to announce the publication of our first article of 2025! Go check out @WordsFromAStone.bsky.social's latest, "Oh Poor Jephthah: Jephthah, Jephthah's Daughter, and Himpathy," now available on our website. jibs.hcommons.org/volume-6-iss...

New JIBS issue! Big thanks to guest editors on this one, @isaacsoon.bsky.social Eleanor Vivian and @tdbiii.bsky.social

So excited that this special issue is now out and for the opportunity to get on my soapbox about nondisabled interpretations of John 5.

- Emma Swai , “A Metanarrative of Disability in John 5."
- Grace Emmett and Ryan Collman, “St Paul of the Thorns: A Note on Disability, Visual Criticism, and 2 Cor 2 Corinthians 12:7b–10."

- Grant Gates, “Davidic Kings with Disability: Illness, Disability, and Ideal Monarchs.”
- Matthew Korpman Matthew J. Korpman, “Epilepsy as Punishment from God: A Disability Reading of 2 and 3 Maccabees."

Guest edited by Eleanor Vivian, @isaacsoon.bsky.social, and @tdbiii.bsky.social, this issue features the following articles:

We are very pleased to announce the publication of a special JIBS issue on Disability and the Bible.

jibs.hcommons.org/archive/volu...

Like his namesake, in Genesis to whom God delegated the naming of the animals, I consider how the Adam of Good Omens uses naming to define the world around him and in doing so, asserts his humanity over his supernatural origins.”

and specifically with literary and popular cultural engagements with Genesis and Revelation. Approaching the novel primarily via its literary and cinematic intertexts, I position Adam Young as a literary construct who in turn names and shapes other beings out of material from his own mental library.

Here, I propose a reading of Good Omens that explores human agency through the process of naming. Focusing on the character of Adam Young, who is himself named after the first human described in Genesis, I examine how Good Omens intersects with the cultural inheritance of the Bible,..

Abstract: “In Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman’s 1990 comic novel Good Omens, names act as important signifiers of role and function; the act of naming can be an expression of power so strong and significant that it can literally shape reality…

🚨✨Now published✨🚨: "Naming as Human Agency in Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman’s Good Omens" by Clair J. Hutchings-Budd. jibs.hcommons.org/archive/volu...

embracing a queer future free of the constraints of heteronormative reproductivity. But the parable can also be understood as a conservative cautionary tale that insists on temporal reproductive norms and pathologises deviance from full alignment toward a heteroreproductive future.

and it provokes reflection on the limits that heteronorming structures place on thriving. Read alongside theorists of queer futurity, the parable of the man with two sons affords at least two possible interpretations. It can be understood as a gesture toward a new horizon,

highlighting its use of family structures and its assumptions about time, and attending to the story’s reflections on the conditions of flourishing. Understood this way, the parable of the man with two sons reads as a debate over bodies, kinship, and possession of the future,

Abstract: Few of the parables found in the gospels have received more attention than the parable of the man with two sons, commonly known as the parable of the Prodigal Son. In this paper, I argue that discourses of queer futurity can help make new sense of the parable,

So grateful to the JIBS team for helping me share these thoughts with the world!

Now published: Eric C. Smith's "There Was a Man Who Had Two Sons: A Parable of Futurity, Reproductivity, Utopia, and Social Death." Don't miss it!

… which largely embraces working people as foundational supporters of the early Jesus movement. This article examines why and how attitudes toward commercial and artisanal workers changed so that a faith that once welcomed professionals later denied them.

… emphasizing the virtue of their brothers and sisters. Yet this rejection of commercial and artisanal workers runs counter to the attitudes displayed in the New Testament, especially the letters of Paul and Acts of the Apostles, …

… Detractors hoped to attack Christianity on two intersecting fronts: that the faith was morally bankrupt and that its faithful were the lowest members of society. Apologists of the 2nd and 3rdcenturies denied that Christianity welcomed these workers, …

Abstract: Christian merchants, artisans, and service providers were explicitly targeted by early critics of the movement, who felt, in line with contemporary prejudices, that such people were dirty, ignorant, and prone to the vices of greed and deceit. …

New Article Day!🤩 Hot off the virtual presses, it's Jane Sancinito's "Requiring Apologia? Merchants and Artisans in Acts of the Apostles." jibs.hcommons.org/archive/volu...