Lecturer in Biblical and Religious Studies, University of Sheffield
Meredith Warren is Lecturer in Biblical and Religious Studies at the University of Sheffield, and is a member of SIIBS, the Sheffield Institute for Interdisciplinary Biblical Studies. She directs the SIIBS research theme, Embodied Religion.
Warren completed her degrees (BA, MA, PhD) at McGill University and from 2013–2015 held a postdoctoral position at the University of Ottawa funded by the Fonds de Recherche du Québec — Société et Culture. She has taught classes on women in early Judaism and Christianity, Koine Greek, ancient Mediterranean religions, and the early church. Meredith’s primary research interests lie in the cultural and theological interactions among the religions of ancient Mediterranean, especially early Judaism and Christianity. In particular, Meredith is interested in how shared cultural understandings of food and eating play a role in ancient narratives, including the Pseudepigrapha, Hellenistic romance novels, and the Gospels.
Meredith’s doctoral work, recently published as My Flesh is Meat Indeed: A Nonsacramental Reading of John 6:51–58 (Fortress 2015), investigates how the Gospel of John makes use of Jewish, Christian, Greek, and Roman attitudes about sacrifice, divinity, and the consumption of human flesh in order to make claims about Jesus’ divinity.
Her current book project, titled Hierophagy: Transformational Eating in Ancient Literature, examines how characters in literature are transformed by eating otherworldly food. An article emerging from this research, “My Heart Poured Forth Understanding: 4 Ezra’s Fiery Cup as Hierophagic Consumption,” was recently published at the journal Studies in Religion.
What child is this? Miraculous births and divine parents in the time of Jesus
Dec 25, 2016 04:11 am UTC| Life
Many people are familiar with the stories in the New Testament gospels of Luke and Matthew about Jesus conception and birth. But what is less well known is how common such stories are when the lives of great men are told....
Is God really dead? How Britain lost faith in the church
Oct 25, 2016 02:37 am UTC| Life
Is God dead? Fifty years ago, on April 8, 1966, a Time magazine cover asked just that question. The same could be asked in Britain today. The Church of England recently announced it was considering dropping the requirement...
'What is dead may never die': the secrets of resurrection in the Bible and Game of Thrones
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Warning: this article contains spoilers for those not up to date with Game of Thrones series six. Events in HBOs Game of Thrones TV series have got people talking about what it means to return from the dead. But while...
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