About

CURRENT POSITION

• Co-editor, New Testament Abstracts, Boston College (litwa@bc.edu)
  • Unit Chair, Bible, Myth, and Myth Theory Group at the Society of Biblical Literature

EDUCATION

• Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) University of Virginia
• Master of Theology (Th.M.) Duke University
• Master of Divinity (M.Div.) Emory University

PUBLICATIONS

Books

1. Carpocrates, Marcellina, and Epiphanes: Three Early Christian Teachers of Alexandria and Rome (London: Routledge, 2022).
2. Found Christianities: Remaking the World in the Second Century CE (London: T&T Clark, 2022).
3. The Evil Creator: Origins of an Early Christian Idea (New York: Oxford University Press, 2021).
4. Posthuman Transformation in Ancient Mediterranean Thought: Becoming Angels and Demons (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021).
5. How the Gospels Became History: Jesus and Mediterranean Myths (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2019).
6. Hermetica II: The Excerpts of Stobaeus, Papyrus Fragments, and Ancient Testimonies in a English Translation with Notes and Introductions (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018).
7. Desiring Divinity: Self-deification in Ancient Jewish and Christian Mythmaking. Forthcoming from Oxford University Press, 2016.
8. Refutation of All Heresies: Text, Translation, and Notes, Writings from the Greco-Roman World 40 (Atlanta: SBL Press, 2015).
9. Iesus Deus: The Early Christian Depiction of Jesus as a Mediterranean God (Minneapolis: Fortress Academic, 2014).
10. Becoming Divine: An Introduction to Deification in Western Culture (Eugene, OR: Cascade, 2013)
11. We Are Being Transformed: Deification in Paul’s Soteriology (Beihefte zum Zeitschrift für Neutestamentliche Wissenschaft 187; Berlin & New York: Walter de Gruyter, 2012).

Articles in Peer-Reviewed Journals

1. “Deification and Defecation: Valentinus Fragment 3 and the Physiology of Jesus’s Digestion,” Journal of Early Christian Studies 31:1 (2023): 1-18.
2. “The So-called Stratiotics and Phibionites: Three Notes on the “Gnostics” of Epiphanius, Panarion 26,” Vigiliae Christianae 76 (2022): 73-93.
3. “Did Marcion Call the Creator ‘God’?” Journal of Theological Studies 72:1 (2021): 231-46. https://doi.org/10.1093/jts/flab010.
4. “Equal to Angels: The Early Reception History of the Lukan ἰσάγγελοι (Luke 20:36),” forthcoming from the Journal of Biblical Literature 140:3 (2021): 601-22.
5. “The So-called Stratiotics and Phibionites: Three Notes on the “Gnostics” of Epiphanius, Panarion 26,” Vigiliae Christianae 76 (2022): 73-93.
6. “The Father of the Devil (John 8:44): A Christian Exegetical Inspiration for the Evil Creator,” Vigiliae Christianae (2020): 1-26.
7. “Literary Eyewitnesses: The Appeal to an Eyewitness in John and Contemporaneous Literature,” New Testament Studies 64:3 (2018): 343-61.
8. “Paul the ‘god’ in Acts 28: A Comparison with Philoctetes,” Journal of Biblical Literature 136:3 (2017): 707-726.
9. “You are Gods”: Deification in the Naassene Writer and Clement of Alexandria,” Harvard Theological Review, 110:1 (2017): 125-48.
10. “Gnostic Self-deification: The Case of Simon of Samaria,” Gnosis: Journal of Gnostic Studies 1 (2016): 157-76.
11. “Phikola: A Mysteries Goddess at Phlya,” Religion in the Roman Empire 2:2 (2016): 279-93.
12. “‘I Will Become Him’: Homology and Deification in the Gospel of Thomas,” Journal of Biblical Literature, 133:2 (2015): 427-47.
13. “The Deification of Moses in Philo of Alexandria” The Studia Philonica Annual 26 (2014): 1-27.
14. “The Wondrous Exchange: Irenaeus and Eastern Valentinians on the Soteriology of Interchange,” The Journal of Early Christian Studies 22 (2014): 311-41.
15. “The God ‘Human’ and Human Gods: Models of Deification in Irenaeus and the Apocryphon of John,” Zeitschrift für Antikes Christentum 18 (2014): 70-94.
16. “Transformation through a Mirror: Moses in 2 Cor 3:18,” Journal for the Study of the New Testament 34 (2012): 286-97.
17. “Paul’s Mosaic Ascent: An Interpretation of 2 Cor 12:7-9,” New Testament Studies 57 (2011): 238-57.
18. “Self Sacrifice to Save the Life of Another in Jewish and Christian Traditions: A Comparative Analysis,” Heythrop Journal 50:6 (2009): 912-922.

Book Chapters

1. “The Mysteries in Christian Gnosis: The Case of the Naassene Preacher,” forthcoming in The Oxford Handbook of Ancient Mystery Cults, ed. Hugh Bowden and Rassia Aikaterini-Iliana.
2. “Resurrection, Transformation, and Deification,” forthcoming in The Cambridge History of Ancient Christianity, ed. Bruce Longenecker and David Wilhite (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2022).
3. “Divinities,” forthcoming in The Oxford Handbook to the New Testament in the Roman Empire, ed. Harry O. Maier, Emiliano R. Urciuoli, Heidi Wendt (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2023).
4. “The Presocratics,” in The Routledge Handbook of Early Christian Philosophy, ed. Mark Edwards (London: Routledge, 2021), 179-190.
5. “The Curse of the Creator: Galatians 3:13 and Negative Demiurgy,” in Telling the Christian Story Differently: Counternarratives from Nag Hammadi and Beyond, ed. Francis Watson and Sarah Parkhouse (London: Bloomsbury Academic Press, 2020), 13-30.
6. “Becoming Gods: Deification and the Supernatural,” in Religion: Super Religion, ed. Jeffrey J. Kripal, Macmillan Interdisciplinary Handbooks, Religion Series (Farmington Hills, MI: Macmillan Reference USA, 2017), 89-103.

EMPLOYMENT AND SERVICE

• Past Positions
  • Senior Research Fellow, Institute for Religion and Critical Inquiry, ACU Melbourne
  • Instructor in Early Christianity, Virginia Tech Department of Religion and Culture, USA from August 2016 to June 2017
  • Lecturer in Classics, College of William & Mary, USA from January to May 2016
  • Lecturer in Classics, University of Virginia, USA from January 2013 to May 2015

• Unit Chair for Bible, Myth, and Myth Theory, Society of Biblical Literature
• Organizer
  • North American Patristics Society Open Call Session: Alternative Christianities (2020-2022)

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