Acknowledgements
This project would not have been possible if it were not for numerous people supporting and encouraging me throughout my research and writing. I would like to thank my supervisors, Professor Chris Keith and Professor James Crossley, for offering invaluable mentoring, guidance, and feedback. Their constant push to improve was at times difficult but proved to be exactly what I needed. It is with the generous funding provided by St Mary’s University and the Centre for the Social Scientific Study of the Bible that I was able to undertake my studies and research full-time.
Special thanks go to Professor Tom Davis. He saw potential in me even when I was not his student. He pushed me to study archaeology and pursue this project. He encouraged me when I was at my lowest, and he never gave up on me.
Portions of several chapters and ideas that became chapters were presented at conferences held in Irving, TX (ASOR Southwest Regional Meeting, March, 2017), London (“Social-Scientific Criticism and Christian Origins: Past, Present, and Future,” Centre for the Social Scientific Study of the Bible, May 2018; Bible, Critical Theory, and Reception Seminar, July 2018), Rome (SBL International Meeting, July 2019), and Warsaw (EABS, August 2019). Thanks are due to all the participants of these meetings for their valuable insights that helped immensely in my research. Additionally, my sister Sara Robertson helped proofread a certain number of chapters.
Nathan and Kristen Shedd deserve my gratitude. Their friendship knows no bounds. Any attempt to catalogue the ways they have positively impact my life would be futile.
Finally, thanks are overdue to my wife, Dani Robertson. She has endured the many years of my education and supported me the whole way through. She is the best partner I could ever imagine, and words cannot fully express the depths of the gratitude and admiration I have for her. I would be remiss if I did not mention that she has proofread everything I have ever written, a monumental task that I have not made easy. Without her, I would not be the person I am today, and I am truly fortunate to have her in my life.
Michael Scott Robertson
Quarantined in Teddington, London
09 April 2020