Prof. Royalty teaches biblical studies and early Christianity, sociology of religion, particularly apocalypticism, and critical theory. He has led immersion trips with Wabash students to Israel / Palestine (2014) and Turkey (2003, 2010). His research in early Christianity includes the Apocalypse or Book of Revelation and the development of early Christian "heresy." During his most recent sabbatical leave, he spent a semester teaching at Harlaxton College in Lincolnshire, England and a semester as a Visiting Scholar in the Classics Department at Stanford University. He was a fellow at the Stanford Humanities Center in 2005-2006. He is currently working on religious tourism in the US. He came to Wabash College in 1999 after teaching at Stanford in Religious Studies and first-year humanities courses for five years. He is a board member of the International Society of Heresy Studies.
Education
Ph.D. in Religious Studies, Yale University, December 1995
S.T.M, Yale Divinity School, May 1990
M. Div. cum laude, Yale Divinity School, May 1989
B. A. with Honors in English and Religious Studies, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, May 1983
Recent Course Offerings
REL 162 - Intro to New Testament
HUM/REL 196 - 101 Ways to End the World
REL 290 - Contested Texts, Contested Sites (with travel to Israel and Palestine)
REL 490 - The Study of Religion
Recent Presentations
“Demonic Symposia in the Apocalypse of John.” Revelation Seminar, British New Testament Society Conference, Manchester, England, September 5th, 2014.
“Staging the Bible: Performing Jesus at the Holy Land Experience.” The Bible in American Life Conference, Center for the Study of Religion and American Culture, Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis, August 8th, 2014.
“Heresy before ‘Heresy.’” International Society of Heresy Studies, New York University, May 30, 2014.
Recent Publications
Books:
Walking Hadrian's Wall: A Memoir of a Father's Suicide. Brunswick, ME: Shanti Arts, LLC, 2021.
The Origin of Heresy: A History of Discourse in Second Temple Judaism and Early Christianity. Routledge Studies in Religion, 18. Routledge, 2013. Paperback edition June 2015
The Streets of Heaven: The Ideology of 天下足球网,球探比分alth in the Apocalypse of John. Mercer University Press, 1998
Recent Articles
“Heresy" in Routledge Encyclopedia of Ancient Mediterranean Religion (December, 2015).
“Political Leadership and Gender: Early Church” in The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Bible and Gender Studies
“The Emergence of “heresy” in Second Temple Judaism and Early Christianity,” Concilium: International Journal of Theology 2014.2, 37–47. German ed. “Das Aufkommen des Häresiebegriffs im Judentum des Zweiten Tempels und im frühen Christentum,” 131–40. Italian ed. “Il sorgere dell’“eresia”nel giudaismo del secondo Tempio e nel cristianesimo primitivo,” 49–62. Spanish ed. “La aparición de la «herejía» en el judaísmo del Segundo Templo y en el cristianismo primitive,” 33–45.