Dr. Grant Adamson specializes in early Christianity and the ancient Mediterranean. His research primarily concerns the creative, bizarre, even transgressive rewriting practices of early Christians. The focus of his current book project is how the Matthean and Lukan infancy narratives were rewritten in the second century to include the idea that Jesus pre-existed, descended from heaven, and then was incarnated through virgin birth. He has also published on the rewriting of Jesus tradition, Greco-Egyptian tradition, Plato’s Timaeus, and the book of Genesis in Sethian gnostic texts. In the field of papyrology, his edition of a Roman soldier’s letter was featured in national and international news. Before moving to the University of Arizona, he was a postdoctoral teaching fellow at Rice University, where he graduated with a PhD from the Department of Religion.
Dr. Adamson teaches a wide range of courses, including World Religions, Greek and Roman Religion, New Testament, and Ancient Greek. He is a faculty affiliate of Classics.