Skip to main content

Peter W. Martens, Ph.D.

Professor of Early Christianity; Clarence Louis and Helen Steber Professor

Office Hours

T,Th: 10 a.m. to noon

Courses Taught

The Bible's First Experts: Alexandrians, Antiochenes, and Beyond; The Stories Christians Told; Early Christianity in 15 Objects

Education

Ph.D., University of Notre Dame, 2004

Research Interests

Martens is a specialist in late antique Christianity. His main interests include the Bible and its reception, the history of scholarly practices and education, as well as the programs of innovative and influential scholars, especially Origen of Alexandria and the so-called Antiochene theologians of the fourth and fifth centuries. He is also interested in displaced peoples in the modern world (his ancestors have often been on the move) and university strategy. Professor Martens is a philologist, an editor and interpreter of texts, which makes him feel at home in a number of humanities disciplines.

His current project is a book-length study of the roles that scholars adopt towards texts – postures that range from criticism to enchantment, caution to confidence, and curation to creativity. The focus is on biblical scholarship from the first millennium, but the topic and thesis are oriented to modern notions of criticism, contemporary textual practices in the humanities, deep reading in a technological era, and the role of philology in the formation of liberal citizens.

Publications and Media Placements

Books
Origen and Scripture: The Contours of the Exegetical Life (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012; Spanish translation with Editorial Sígueme, 2018.

Adrian's "Introduction to the Divine Scriptures": An Antiochene Handbook for Biblical Interpretation. Study, Edition and Annotated Translation (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017).

The Oxford Handbook of Early Christian Biblical Interpretation (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019).

Select Essays 

“Responding to his Critics: a New Account of Origen’s Peri Archon.” Journal of Late Antiquity 17 (2024): 70-93.

"Classifying Early Christian Writings: Boundaries, Arrangements, and Latent Dynamics.” Early Christianity 12 (2021): 431-446.

Honors and Awards

Martens has received fellowships from the Institute for Advanced Study (Central European University), NEH, DAAD, Fulbright Commission and Dumbarton Oaks (Harvard University). He is also a member of Phi Beta Kappa.

Professional Organizations and Associations

  • Society of Biblical Literature
  • American Academy of Religion
  • North American Patristics Society
  • History of Human Freedom and Dignity (Innovative Training Network)