Staff profile

Education

Ph.D. Florida State University (2018)

British Academy International Fellowship (Durham, 2024–2027)

Alexander von Humboldt Fellowship (Regensburg, 2022–2024)

Chateaubriand Fellowship in Humanities (Paris, 2017–2018)

Research

My research focuses on apocryphal/parabiblical narratives, primarily in Syriac. My British Academy project at Durham University concentrates on parabiblical and hagiographical Syriac narratives within their material embodiments––primarily manuscripts. I am arguing that scribes strategically collected, arranged, and edited stories about apostles and saints with the aim of inventing a history for the Syriac-speaking (primarily Christian) groups. Much like other religious myths (e.g., gospels, creation stories, missionary stories), these narratives are situated in a deep past that was shared by Christian groups all over the Mediterranean. They were not simply entertaining (though they were that), they were credible and authoritative. And like other stories about beginnings, they also contain the ideologies of the people who created them and, importantly, of the people who transmitted them. As such, parabiblica and hagiography are important glimpses (however oblique) into the literary, historical, and ideological forces at play in the construction of a cultural identity.

Select Bibliography

Books:

Forthcoming. Thekla in Syriac: The Acts of Thekla and Its Reception in the Syriac Traditions. STAC. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck.

2023. The Doctrine of Addai and the Letters of Jesus and Abgar. Early Christian Apocrypha 10. Eugene, OR: Cascades. (https://www.nasscal.com/early-christian-apocrypha-series/the-doctrine-of-addai-and-the-letters-of-jesus-and-abgar/)

2020. The History of John the Son of Zebedee: Introduction, Texts and Translations. Texts from Christian Late Antiquity 56. Piscataway: Gorgias Press. (https://www.gorgiaspress.com/the-history-of-john-the-son-of-zebedee?query=Lollar)

Selected Articles:

2023. "The History of Paul," in New Testament Apocrypha: More Noncanonical Scriptures. Volume 3. Edited by T. Burke. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans. Pages 393–407.

2021. "'The marks of my body, that I might come to the resurrection': A Quotation of 3 Corinthians in the Syriac Martyrdom of Šarbēl." Apocrypha 32: 71–83. 

2021. "'The history that should be placed at the beginning of the Book of Paul the Apostle': New Evidence for the Syriac Euthalian Apparatus in Apocryphal Texts." Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies 24.1: 195–224. (OA: https://hugoye.bethmardutho.org/article/hv24n1lollar)

2018. "A Survey of the Manuscripts of the Syriac History of John." Apocrypha 29: 113–136.

2018. "Wisdom of Solomon (15.3––Syriac)." The Textual History of the Bible. Volume 2B. Area Editor M. Goff; Volume Editor M. Henze and F. Feder; General Editor A. Lange. Leiden: Brill. (https://brill.com/display/title/35856)