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Jeremiah Coogan
Assistant Professor of New Testament

I am a historian whose work centers on the New Testament and early Christianity. My current research focuses on practices of Gospel reading and on the social history of early Christianity (especially questions of enslavement and empire). As a teacher, I invite students to creative encounter with the New Testament in light of its manifold contexts, from the ancient Mediterranean to global reading communities today.

I received my PhD in Christianity and Judaism in Antiquity from the University of Notre Dame (2020). Prior to coming to JST as Assistant Professor of New Testament in 2022, I was a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellow in the Faculty of Theology and Religion at the University of Oxford (2020–2022).

My award-winning first book Eusebius the Evangelist (Oxford University Press, 2023) demonstrates how the fourth-century scholar Eusebius of Caesarea employed emerging technologies to create new possibilities for reading the Gospels according to Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. For over a thousand years and in more than a dozen languages, the “Eusebian apparatus” shaped Gospel reading in the Middle East, North Africa, Central Asia, and Europe. This neglected history is central to the formation of a “New Testament” and to the reception of the Gospels.

My current project, tentatively titled The Invention of Gospel Literature, investigates how early readers deployed bibliographic categories to understand Gospel texts. The project locates Christians thinkers within the wider intellectual milieu of the second- and third-century Mediterranean world, offering a narrative that transcends disciplinary boundaries between religion and classics.

I am an affiliated faculty member of the Department of Sacred Texts and Their Interpretation (GTU), the Richard S. Dinner Center for Jewish Studies (GTU), and the Ancient History and Mediterranean Archaeology graduate program (UC–Berkeley).

Courses
  • Gospel Literature
  • Paul in Context
  • Mark from the Margins
  • New Testament Research Methods (Lukan Travel Narrative)
  • Apocalypse, Empire, and Hope
Publications
Location
Office hours by appointment, room 212
Curriculum vitae