Joseph Sanzo (Ph.D., History, UCLA, 2012) is a scholar of late antique Mediterranean religions. He has held postdoctoral fellowships at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München. His monograph, Scriptural Incipits on Amulets from Late Antique Egypt (Mohr Siebeck, 2014), represents the first sustained and focused analysis of the use of opening lines (incipits) of biblical texts and books in late antique apotropaic and curative contexts.

Selected Publications

Book

Scriptural Incipits on Amulets from Late Antique Egypt: Text, Typology, and Theory (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2014).

Selected Edited Volumes

(with Michael Sloan), Greco-Roman Literature. Vol. 6 of Ancient Literature for New Testament Study. Edited by Craig Evans and Grant Macaskill (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan), under contract.

(with Flavia Ruani), Dangerous Books: Scribal Activity and Religious Boundaries in Late Antiquity and Beyond, in Henoch 38.2 (2017): 195–330.

(with Armin Bergmeier and Katharina Palmberger), Erzeugung und Zerstörung von Sakralität zwischen Antike und Mittelalter (Distant Worlds Journal Special Issues 1; Heidelberg: Propylaeum, 2016).

(with Ra‘anan Boustan and Jacco Dieleman), Authoritative Traditions and Ritual Power in the Ancient World, in Archiv für Religionsgeschichte 16 (2014): 3–130.

Selected Refereed Journal Articles

“Magic and Communal Boundaries: The Problems with Amulets in Chrysostom, Adv. Iud. 8, and Augustine, In Io. tra. 7,” Henoch 38.2 (2017): 227–46.

(with Nils H. Korsvoll), “A New Testament Text in a Syriac Incantation Bowl: Eph. 6:10-17 on IBC 3,” Vigiliae Christianae 71.4 (2017): 417–34.

(with Lorne Zelyck), “P. Berol. 11710 Revisited,” The Journal of Theological Studies 68.1 (2017): 72–92.

(with Ra‘anan Boustan), “Christian Magicians, Jewish Magical Idioms, and the Shared Magical Culture of Late Antiquity,” The Harvard Theological Review 110.2 (2017): 217–40.

“Wrapped up in the Bible: The Multifaceted Ritual on a Late Antique Amulet (P. Oxy. VIII 1077),” Journal of Early Christian Studies 24.4 (2016): 569–97.

“The Innovative Use of Biblical Traditions for Ritual Power: The Crucifixion of Jesus on a Coptic Exorcistic Spell (Brit. Lib. Or. 6796[4], 6796) as a Test Case,” Archiv für Religionsgeschichte 16 (2014): 67–98.

“Brit. Lib. Or. 4919(2): An Unpublished Coptic Amulet in the British Library,” Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 183 (2012): 98–100.

Selected Book Chapters, Reference Works, and Handbooks

“Deconstructing the Deconstructionists: A Response to Recent Criticisms of the Rubric ‘Ancient Magic,’” in Ancient Magic: Then and Now, ed. Attilio Mastrocinque, Joseph Sanzo, and Marianna Scapini (Nordhausen: Bautz), under contract.

“Early Christianity,” in Guide to the Study of Ancient Magic, ed. David Frankfurter (Leiden: Brill, 2019), 192–233.

“Frazer, Sir James George (1854–1941),” in Routledge Encyclopedia of Modernism, ed. Stephen Ross (London: Routledge, 2016): https://www.rem.routledge.com/articles/frazer-sir-james-george-1854-1941.

“Renan, Ernest (1823–1892),” in Routledge Encyclopedia of Modernism, ed. Stephen Ross (London: Routledge, 2016): https://www.rem.routledge.com/articles/renan-ernest-1823-1892.

(with Ra‘anan Boustan) “Jewish Culture and Society in a Christianizing Empire,” in The Cambridge Companion to the Age of Attila, ed. Michael Maas (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2014), 358–75.

Selected Reviews (invited)

Heidi Wendt, At the Temple Gates: The Religion of Freelance Experts in the Early Roman Empire (New York: Oxford University Press, 2016), in Bryn Mawr Classical Review 2017.05.18: http://bmcr.brynmawr.edu/2017/2017-05-18.html.

Andrew Wilburn, Materia Magica: The Archaeology of Magic in Egypt, Spain and Cyprus (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2013), in The Bulletin of the American Society of Papyrologists 50 (2013): 353–58.

International Conferences Organised

(with Olivier Dufault) Inscribing Power in Antiquity: Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Germany, October 20–23, 2016.

(with Brouria Bitton-Ashkelony and Flavia Ruani) Books of Threats and Threatening Books: Perceptions of “Threat” in Late Antique Book Culture: The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel, May 26-27, 2014.

(with Ra‘anan Boustan and Jacco Dieleman) Authoritative Traditions and Ritual Power in the Ancient World: University of California, Los Angeles, October 22, 2012.