Celene Lillie
Religious Studies • Jewish Studies

Office:Eaton 280
Office Hours:Monday 12:15 -2:15pm

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Lecturer in Religious Studies and Jewish Studies


Prof.Lillie:

Celene Lillie is a scholar of early Christianity, focusing on the diversity of expression in the first several centuries after Jesus.Integral to this research are questions of context including Second Temple Judaism, first century Galilee, and the Roman occupation of the region.Among her research interests are: the relationship between a wide variety of texts (including those which became the Christian testament and the Nag Hammadi Library); the influence of Jewish reading techniques on the early Jesus movements; gender and the early Jesus movement; sexual violence and Roman colonization; the politics of translation; among others.

Lillie teaches at a number of universities and graduate schools and lectures nationally on early Christianity.She is the author of numerous publications and has published many translations of Greek and Coptic texts.Her monograph is entitled The Rape of Eve: The Transformation of Roman Ideology in Three Early Christian Retellings of Genesis.She graduated with her Ph.D. from Union Theological Seminary in New York City in 2016.

Areas of Research Related to Jewish Studies:

The Jewish origins of early Christian texts and the Jesus movement; Second Temple Judaism; the use of Hebrew Bible/Septuagint and other Jewish literature in early Christian texts; Jewish reading and interpretational methods

Courses Taught:

  • Women and Religion (RLST-WGST 2800)
  • Paganism to Christianity (CLAS-RLST 2610-2614)
  • Introduction to the New Testament (RLST 1910)
  • Introduction to Jewish Culture (JWST/GSLL 2350)
  • Women, Gender, & Sexuality in Jewish Texts and Traditions (HEBR-RLST 3202/WGST 3201)

Recent and Forthcoming Publications (Selected):

“The Rape of Eve” inThe Routledge Companion to Eve, eds. Caroline Blyth and Emily Colgan, Routledge, 2004.