Naomi Reiss (MA (Cantab), MSc)

Thesis title: Writing Across Prison Walls: Documenting Incarceration in Early Christianity

Biography

Qualifications

MA (Cantab) Modern and Medieval Languages (I)

University of Cambridge (2019)

MSc Biblical Studies (Distinction)

University of Edinburgh (2021)

 

Undergraduate teaching

Tutor: 'Popular Religion, Women and Witchcraft in Early Modern Europe', Semester 1 2025-2026

Tutor: 'Paul and His Letters' (Level 8), Semester 2 2024-2025

Tutor: 'Introduction to New Testament Greek' (Levels 8-11), Semester 1 2023-2024

Research summary

Naomi's research interests centre on incarceration in early Christianity. Her recently-completed PhD thesis discusses the experiences of imprisoned Christ-followers as documented in the New Testament and other early Christian texts. She is interested in all kinds of carceral logics, ancient and modern, and the way that biblical texts are implicated in modern discourses around imprisonment and the pastoral care of prisoners. 

Affiliated research centres

Current project grants

Doctoral Training Partnership with the Scottish Graduate School of Arts and Humanities (SGSAH).

Conference details

'Imprisonment in Roman Penal Ideology and Christian Martyr Literature', British New Testament Conference (BNTS), Manchester, September 2025

'Imprisoning Women in Mediterranean Antiquity', Between Athens and Jerusalem: Classical Studies and Biblical Studies in Dialogue, Edinburgh, April 2025

‘Perpetua’s Praetorium: Re-Reading the Prison Space’, Society of Biblical Literature Annual Meeting (SBL), San Diego, November 2024

‘Detention and Refuge in the Book of Acts: A Selective Comparison with British Asylum Policy’, SBL, San Diego, November 2024

‘Administrative Detention and Religion, Class and Ethnicity in the Book of Acts’, European Association of Biblical Studies (EABS), Sofia, July 2024

‘Prison within the Economy of Martyrdom: Some Third-Century Perspectives’, Edinburgh-Copenhagen joint NT seminar (online), May 2024

‘Paul’s Carceral Relationships with Local Law Enforcers, Rome, and God’, presented at:

  • SBL, San Antonio, November 2023
  • BNTS, Exeter, August 2023

‘Imprisoned Animals, Imprisoned People in the Acts of Paul (and Thecla)’, presented at:

  • EABS Graduate Symposium, Jerusalem, March 2023
  • The Humanimal Conference (online), January 2023

Invited speaker

'Incarcerating Women in the Roman World', The Archaeology of Incarceration (conference), Copenhagen, May 2025

‘Christianity and the (Literary) Prison Record’, lecture at the Danish Institute at Athens as part of Prison Project lecture series, January 2025

‘Christ the Jailer: Paul’s Carceral Theology’, New Testament Studies, in press (forthcoming 2026).

Co-authored with Niels Bargfeldt et al., ‘Materiality of Incarceration in Mediterranean Antiquity: The Prison Project (2023–2026)’, Early Christianity 15:4 (2025), 545–565. 

‘Lions and Tigers and Bears, Oh My: Imprisoned Animals and Humans in the Acts of Paul’, Biblical Interpretation 31:5 (2023), 623–634.

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