'Ara degli Scribi'/ Altar of the Scribes.' Porta S. Sebastiano, Rome, Muzeo Nazionale Romano, Terme di Diocleziano, Rome, Inv. Nr. 475113.
Invisible Hands
Candida Moss
University of Birmingham; ISAW
This lecture is part of the ISAW Library events series and will take place in person at ISAW.
Registration is required at THIS LINK.
When we imagine the origins of the Bible or the great libraries of the ancient world, we picture apostles, philosophers, or politicians—visionary figures whose words have endured across centuries. But behind ancient Greek and Latin scrolls and manuscripts lay an invisible workforce: the enslaved and marginalized individuals who copied texts, archived collections, and carried knowledge across empires. Candida Moss will uncover the hidden labor that made the ancient literary world possible. Drawing from her research in God’s Ghostwriters, she reveals how enslaved scribes, copyists, and curators were essential to the production, preservation, and dissemination of the texts we now regard as sacred or canonical. From the bustling scriptoria of Rome to the private libraries of early Christian communities, Prof. Moss traces how power, literacy, and servitude intersected in the shadows of history.
Candida Moss, FRHistS, is the Edward Cadbury Professor of Theology at the University of Birmingham and a research associate at the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World at NYU. She is the multi-award-winning author of nine books, including Ancient Christian Martyrdom (Yale Univ. Press, 2012), Divine Bodies: Resurrecting Perfection in the New Testament and Early Christianity (Yale Univ. Press, 2019), and God’s Ghostwriters: Enslaved Christians and the Making of the Bible (Little Brown, 2024). A columnist for National Geographic, she has won grants and prizes from the Woodrow Wilson Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the John Templeton Foundation, and the British Academy, including, most recently, the Mary-Kay Gamel Public Outreach Prize from the Society for Classical Studies. She is the general editor of the Yale Anchor Bible Series and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
The lecture will be followed by a reception.
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Contact
David M. Ratzan, dr128@nyu.edu.