Notes on Contributors
Antti Laato Antti Laato is Professor in Old Testament exegetics with Judaic studies at Åbo Akademi University, Turku Finland. Since 2006, he has been leader in the international network Study for the Reception History of the Bible. Among his recent publications, are three monographs: Who Is the Servant of the Lord? Jewish and Christian Interpretations on Isaiah 53 from Antiquity to the Middle Ages (2012); Guide to Biblical Chronology (2015); The Origin of the Israelite Zion Theology (2018). He has also edited several volumes, among them the most recent ones: Understanding Spiritual Meaning of Jerusalem in Three Abrahamic Religions (2019) and The Challenge of the Mosaic Torah in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam (2020).
Erkki Koskenniemi Erkki Koskenniemi, PhD (1992), Åbo Akademi University, is Adjunct Professor in New Testament Studies at the University of Helsinki, University of Eastern Finland and Åbo Akademi University. His publications include Apollonius von Tyana in der neutestamentlichen Exegese (1994); The Old Testament Miracle Workers in Early Judaism (2015), The Exposure of Infants among Jews and Christians in Antiquity (2009) and Greek Writers and Philosophers in Philo and Josephus (2019). He is a member of the Network for the Study of the Reception History of the Bible and of the editorial board of Studies in the Reception History of the Bible. He acts as Bible Teacher at Lutheran Evangelical Association in Finland.
Sami Yli-Karjanmaa Sami Yli-Karjanmaa defended his doctoral thesis on Philo of Alexandria in Åbo Akademi University (Turku, Finland) in 2013. Subsequently he has worked as a postdoctoral researcher in the ÅAU as well as in the University of Helsinki on projects funded by the Academy of Finland and (presently) by the University of Helsinki.
Sven-Olav Back Sven-Olav Back is Lecturer in Biblical Languages and Exegesis at Åbo Akademi University, Finland.
Maijastina Kahlos Maijastina Kahlos is a historian and classicist (University of Helsinki, Finland). She is currently working as a university researcher in the Centre of Excellence ‘Reason and Religious Recognition’, funded by the Academy of Finland. She is the author of Debate and Dialogue: Christian and Pagan Cultures, c. 360–430 (2007), Forbearance and Compulsion: The Rhetoric of Tolerance and Intolerance in Late Antiquity (2009), and Religious Dissent in Late Antiquity (forthcoming), and editor of The Faces of the other: Religious Rivalry and Ethnic Encounters in the Later Roman World (2012) and Emperors and the Divine—Rome and its Influence (2016).
Anni Maria Laato Anni Maria Laato is adjunct professor in patristic studies at the University of Helsinki, and in dogmatics in Åbo Akademi University. Apart from her dissertation, Jews and Christians in De duobus montibus Sina et Sion, she has published articles mainly in the field of patristics. Her most recent articles include “Biblical Mothers as Images of the Church”. International Journal for the Study of the Christian Church, 2019, “Adam and Eve Rewritten in Vergil’s Words: Cento of Proba”. Adam and Eve Story in Jewish, Christian and Islamic Perspectives, Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns 2017, “Divided by the Common Ground. The Prophecy of Jacob and Esau (Gen 25:19–26) Patristic Texts up to Augustine with Respect to Modern Inter-Faith Dialogue”. Abraham’s Family. WUNT 415. Tübingen, Mohr Siebeck 2018, and “Tertullian and the Deacons”. Diakonia and Deacons in the New Testament and the Early Church. WUNT II, 479. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2018.
Siiri Toiviainen Rø Siiri Toiviainen Rø obtained her PhD in Historical Theology from the University of Durham with a thesis that explored the links between pleasure, sin, and the good life in the works of Gregory of Nyssa. Since 2017, she has been working as a postdoctoral researcher at the Centre of Excellence in Reason and Religious Recognition at the University of Helsinki, where her project focuses on the receptions of anti-Epicurean polemics in early Christian literature.
Joseph Grabau Joseph Grabau (S.T.L.) is PhD Researcher in the History of Church and Theology at the Catholic University of Leuven’s Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies. His doctoral dissertation, supervised by Prof. dr. Mathijs Lamberigts and Prof. dr. Anthony Dupont, reconsiders the North African reception of the Gospel of John, principally in the Tractates of Augustine of Hippo, with full attention to its exegetical, polemical, rhetorical and theological contexts.
Timo Nisula Timo Nisula is adjunct professor in dogmatics at the Åbo Akademi University. He is the author of Augustine and the Functions of Concupiscence (2012) and has published several articles on the theology and rhetoric of Augustine’s preaching, as well as translations of Augustine’s theological works and sermons.
Eetu Manninen Eetu Manninen is a PhD student at the University of Helsinki and KU Leuven. He is writing his doctoral dissertation on the relationship between the Inner and the Outer in the thought of Augustine of Hippo.
Pablo Irizar Pablo Irizar is Faculty Lecturer and Kennedy Smith Chair in Catholic Studies at the School of Religious Studies of McGill University in Montreal (Canada). He serves as Director of the Newman Centre, also at McGill. He was recently awarded his PhD, which focused on the concept of the Church as the image of God in the thought of Augustine, with the highest distinction (summa cum laude) at the Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies of the KU Leuven. His doctoral research was funded by a FWO Doctoral Research Grant. He is the recipient of the 2020 Louvain Studies Theological Research Award for emerging young scholars.
Aäron Vanspauwen Aäron Vanspauwen (PhD 2019) is a postdoctoral researcher at the Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies at KU Leuven (Belgium), and secretary of that faculty’s Research Unit of History of Church and Theology. The subject of his doctoral research was the anti-Manichaean treatise Aduersus Manichaeos, attributed to Evodius of Uzalis (4th–5th century). His study encompassed a historical, literary, and theological analysis of this treatise. He has previously (2018) finalized a new critical edition of Aduersus Manichaeos. His fields of interest include Early Christianity, in particular fourth- and fifth-century North Africa, Manichaean Studies, and the textual transmission of Patristic texts.
Serafim Seppälä Serafim Seppälä (b. 1970), doctor of philosophy (University of Helsinki, 2002) and professor of systematic theology and patristics (University of Eastern Finland, Joensuu, 2007–). In addition to several monographs in Finnish, he has published numerous scholarly articles in English on topics related to early Syriac literature, East Syrian mysticism, Mariology, Byzantine aesthetics, Christian–Muslim encounter during the early Islamic period, and the cultural heritage of the Armenian genocide.