Dr Todd Klutz - research

Specific research interests:

I began my research career by applying systemic linguistics and related methods (e.g., sociostylistics, discourse analysis, and linguistic criticism) to the exorcism stories in Luke-Acts. My research in that area enabled me to learn about analytical methods that facilitate interdisciplinary enquiry, to illuminate a corpus of passages that struck me as both devalued and poorly understood, and to explore the ways in which those passages relate to the various levels of their ancient Mediterranean context of production. The scholarly reviews of my published monograph in this area (Cambridge, 2004) seem to indicate that my efforts were largely successful; but more important, my work on that same project has contributed to the development of a large number of interests on which I am currently conducting my own research and supervising students at all levels of study.

My decision long ago to concentrate my energies in the field of Lucan studies was in part an attempt to be a generalist and avoid over-narrow forms of specialisation. Focusing on Luke-Acts, for instance, not only has given me ample scope for applying literary-linguistic and narrative forms of analysis to the Lucan material itself; it has also helped me to reinforce or develop strengths in historical Jesus research, Synoptic Gospel source criticism, interpretation of the Gospel of Mark, the Paul-Jesus problem, and the relationship between the Paul of the letters and the Paul of Acts. The now unpopular thesis that Luke-Acts was designed to correct 'Gnostic' teaching, moreover, has contributed to my growing interest in 'Gnostic' Studies and the Nag Hammadi library, on which I teach an MA seminar. And the interface between 'magic' and the demonic in Luke-Acts has contributed to an abiding interest on my part in magico-religious themes in early Christian and Jewish literature; this latter interest has borne fruit in the form of a scholarly monograph on the late antique pseudepigraphon known as the Testament of Solomon, whose long forms I interpret as a Christian attempt to subvert the Solomonic tradition of magico-religious health care.

Current research projects:

The interests summarised above are finding new forms of expression in several of my current projects. An article I am now writing on the use of christianos in the New Testament and Apostolic Fathers, for instance, employs critical discourse analysis in the interest of showing that what early Christian writers meant by 'Christian' varied considerably more than scholarship has normally allowed. In relation to magico-religious themes, I will soon be devoting my energy to reconstructing the earliest recoverable text of the Testament of Solomon's eighteenth chapter, which almost certainly once circulated independently of the Testament as we now have it; and to producing a new English translation of 'The Eighth Book of Moses' (Papyri Graecae Magicae 13.1-734). And finally, I have just begun work on a volume provisionally entitled Gnosticism and the New Testament, which is scheduled for publication in 2008 by Westminster/John Knox Press in the new series New Testament Issues.