Christopher Atkins

Education

Ph.D., Yale University, 2025

 Specialties

Greek and Roman philosophy; history of religions

Research Interests

Christopher Atkins is an intellectual historian specializing in Greek and Roman philosophy and the history of religions. His interests include Plato, Hellenistic Philosophy (especially Stoicism), Philo of Alexandria, ancient Greek religion, and early Jewish and Christian interaction with wider philosophical and religious developments.

Recent Courses

GRK 4305/5302: Plato: Selected Writings
CLA 3372: Hellenistic Philosophy
CLA 2306: Greek and Roman Mythology

Selected Publications

• Forthcoming. “Divine Binding on Delos: The Delian Aretalogy of Sarapis and Local Curse Practice.” Classical Quarterly.
• 2024. “Incantations for Initiation: Ritual Hexameters, Curse Tablets, and Sacred Rites in Classical Sicily.” Kernos 37: 361–391.
• 2023. “Textualizing Pauline Revelation: Self-referentiality, Reading Practices, and Pseudepigraphy in Ephesians.” Harvard Theological Review 116: 24–43.
• 2022. “The Persona of the Teacher: A Qualified Endorsement of the Teacher Hymn Hypothesis.” In Emerging Sectarianism in the Dead Sea Scrolls: Continuity, Separation, and Conflict, ed. John J. Collins and Ananda Geyser-Fouché, Studies in the Texts of the Desert of Judah 141 (Leiden: Brill), 342–361.
• 2021. “Human Body, Divine Image, and the Ascent of the Mind in Philo’s De Plantatione.” The Studia Philonica Annual 33: 73–90.
• 2021. “The Justice of the Cosmos: Philosophical Cosmology and Apocalyptic Eschatology in the Wisdom of Solomon.” New Testament Studies 67.4: 598–612.
• 2021. “Rethinking John 1:1: The Word was Godward.” Novum Testamentum 63.1: 44–62.