Judith M. Lieu

Both as a theologian and as a historian, Judith Lieu specializes in the development of early Christian identities (first and second centuries), both proto-orthodox and heretical, as these evolve vis-à-vis those of other Mediterranean contemporaries, namely diaspora Jews and neighboring pagans. She is the author of six volumes ranging across Christian sources of the first two centuries, and scores of influential essays. Lieu has done foundational work in socially-grounded intellectual history of early Christianity. Attentive to the shrillness of rhetorically honed ancient invective, her book Image and Reality (1996) offered an influential reconstruction of ancient Christian modes of identity-building that managed to be at once both sympathetic and shrewd. She continues to work on the textual strategies of emergent Christianity. Within the New Testament her primary focus has been on the Johannine literature.