Dr. Peter van Minnen, Professor of Classics, Classics Dept., University of Cincinnati

Abstract

No papyri were ever found in Alexandria itself, but a stack of ca. 100 Greek papyri from Augustan Alexandria was found elsewhere recycled as mummy “cartonnage” (covers). These papyri are mostly concerned with agreements between individual Alexandrians, including Jews, women, freedmen, and slaves. The lecture will explore what these papyri can tell us about the social history of the ancient Greek and Roman worlds, about the apostle Paul, and about Jesus’ garden-tomb.

Bio

Dr. Peter van Minnen (PhD 1997) is an ancient historian and papyrologist broadly interested in the society, economy, and culture of the Roman Empire, including Early Christianity and Late Antiquity. An authority on papyri from Greco-Roman Egypt, he made world news in 2000-01 with the discovery of the so-called Cleopatra papyrus. Dr. van Minnen holds degrees in Classics and History from Leiden and Leuven (PhD 1997), and has been at the University of Cincinnati since 2002. He has been the editor of the Bulletin of the American Society of Papyrologists since 2006.

This is a FREE lecture