Lincoln H. Blumell is a Professor in the Department of Ancient Scripture at Brigham Young University. 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 and worked 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 Award from 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 that received first class honors. In 2003 he received a MA in Religious Studies from the University of Calgary. His thesis was supervised by Dr. Wayne McCready and 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 2000 Dr. Blumell studied at Hebrew University in Jerusalem on a Wigham Scholarship.
Dr. Blumell’s research focuses mostly on Christianity in the Roman and Byzantine periods with a special emphasis on Christianity in Egypt and Greek papyrology. He has also joined the BYU Egyptian Excavation at Fag el Gamous (Fayum) and has begun editing some unpublished Greek papyri and inscriptions from the dig.