Hello all!

So, this should be pretty awesome. Gathered here today are some of the finest experts on early Judaism and Christianity that the land of Reddit has to offer. Besides some familiar faces from /r/AskHistorians, you'll see some new faces – experts from /r/AcademicBiblical who have been temporarily granted flair here.

Our combined expertise pretty much runs the gamut of all things relevant to the origins and evolution of Judaism and Christianity: from the wider ancient Near Eastern background from which the earliest Israelite religion emerged (including archaeology, as well as the relevant Semitic languages – from Akkadian to Hebrew to Aramaic), to the text and context of the Hebrew Bible, all the way down to the birth of Christianity in the 1st century: including the writings of the New Testament and its Graeco-Roman context – and beyond to the post-Biblical period: the early church fathers, Rabbinic Judaism, and early Christian apocrypha (e.g. the so-called “Gnostic” writings), etc.

I'm sure this hardly needs to be said, but...we're here, first and foremost, as historians and scholars of Judaism and Christianity. These are fields of study in which impartial, peer-reviewed academic research is done, just like any other area of the humanities. While there may be questions that are relevant to modern theology – perhaps something like “which Biblical texts can elucidate the modern Christian theological concept of the so-called 'fate of the unevangelized', and what was their original context?” – we're here today to address things based only on our knowledge of academic research and the history of Judaism and Christianity.

All that being said, onto to the good stuff. Here's our panel of esteemed scholars taking part today, and their backgrounds:

• /u/ReligionProf has a Ph.D. in New Testament Studies from Durham University. He's written several books, including a monograph on the Gospel of John published by Cambridge University Press; and he's published articles in major journals and edited volumes. Several of these focus on Christian and Jewish apocrypha – he has a particular interest in Mandaeism – and he's also one of the most popular bloggers on the internet who focuses on religion/early Christianity.

• /u/narwhal_ has an M.A. in New Testament, Early Christianity and Jewish Studies from Harvard University; and his expertise is similarly as broad as his degree title. He's published several scholarly articles, and has made some excellent contributions to /r/AskHistorians and elsewhere.

• /u/TurretOpera has an M.Div and Th.M from Princeton Theological Seminary, where he did his thesis on Paul's use of the Psalms. His main area of interest is in the New Testament and early church fathers; he has expertise in Koine Greek, and he also dabbles in Second Temple Judaism.

• /u/husky54 is in his final year of Ph.D. coursework, highly involved in the study of the Hebrew Bible, and is specializing in Northwest Semitic epigraphy and paleography, as well as state formation in the ancient Near East – with early Israelite religion as an important facet of their research.

• /u/gingerkid1234 is one of our newly-christened mods here at /r/AskHistorians, and has a particular interest in the history of Jewish law and liturgy, as well as expertise in the relevant languages (Hebrew, etc.). His AskHistorians profile, with links to questions he's previously answered, can be found here.

• /u/captainhaddock has broad expertise in the areas of Canaanite/early Israelite history and religion, as well as early Christianity – and out of all the people on /r/AcademicBiblical, he's probably made the biggest contribution in terms of ongoing scholarly dialogue there.

• I'm /u/koine_lingua. My interests/areas of expertise pretty much run the gamut of early Jewish and Christian literature: from the relationship between early Biblical texts and Mesopotamian literature, to the noncanonical texts of the Dead Sea Scrolls and other apocrypha (the book of Enoch, etc.), to most facets of early Christianity. One area that I've done a large amount of work in is eschatology, from its origins through to the 2nd century CE – as well as just, more broadly speaking, in reconstructing the origins and history of the earliest Christianity. My /r/AskHistorians profile, with a link to the majority of my more detailed answers, can be found here. Also, I created and am a main contributor to /r/AcademicBiblical.

• /u/Flubb is another familiar (digital) face from /r/AskHistorians. He specializes in ancient Near Eastern archaeology, intersecting with early Israelite history. Also, he can sing and dance a bit.

• /u/brojangles has a degree in Religion, and is also one of the main contributors to /r/AcademicBiblical, on all sorts of matters pertaining to Judaism and Christianity. He's particularly interested in Christian origins, New Testament historical criticism, and has a background in Greek and Latin.

• /u/SF2K01 won't be able to make it until sundown on the east coast – but he has an M.A. in Ancient Jewish History (more specifically focusing on so-called “classical” Judaism) from Yeshiva University, having worked under several fine scholars. He's one of our resident experts on Rabbinic Judaism; and, well, just a ton of things relating to early Judaism.