Biography

Lincoln H. Blumell is a Professor in the Department of Ancient Scripture at Brigham Young University. He currently serves as the Associate Dean over Research in Religious Education. Dr. Blumell came to Brigham Young University in 2010 from the Department of Classical Studies at Tulane University, where he had been a visiting professor from 2009 to 2010. Dr. Blumell completed his Ph.D. in the Department of Religion at the University of Toronto in 2009, under the supervision of Professor John Kloppenborg. His doctoral dissertation, Lettered Christians: Christians, Letters, and Late Antique Oxyrhynchus , was published under the same title in the New Testament Tools, Studies, and Documents (NTTSD) series (no. 39), eds. Bart D. Ehrman and Eldon J. Epp, by Brill in 2012. It subsequently received the Frank W. Beare Awardfrom the Canadian Society of Biblical Studies (CSBS) in 2013 for the most outstanding book in the area of Christian Origins/Post-Biblical Judaism and/or Graeco-Roman Religions published in 2012.

Before beginning doctoral work at the University of Toronto in 2004 Dr. Blumell studied at the University of Oxford (Christ Church) between 2003 and 2004, earning an M.St. in Jewish Studies. While at Oxford he worked under the supervision of Sir Fergus Millar and wrote an M.St. thesis titled Galilean Social Bandits? An Examination of Galilean Brigandage from Herod the Great to the Outbreak of the First Jewish Revolt Against Rome, which received first-class honors. In 2003, he received an MA in Religious Studies from the University of Calgary. His thesis was supervised by Dr. Wayne McCready. It was titled The Early Roman Emperors and the Christians: An Examination of the Early Emperors’ Ascribed Position as “Persecutors” of the Christians. In 2001, he received a BA (Hons.) in Classical and Early Christian Studies from the University of Calgary.  During the summer semester of 2000, Dr. Blumell studied at Hebrew University in Jerusalem on a Wigham Scholarship.

Dr. Blumell’s research focuses primarily on Christianity in the Roman and Byzantine periods, with a special emphasis on Christianity in Egypt and Greek papyrology and epigraphy.  He is also a team member of the BYU Egyptian Excavation at Fag el-Gamous (Fayum) and has been working on the dig since 2013. He has published four books and over 90 articles.