Lived Experience of Religion in Recent Research on the Shepherd of Hermas

The past decade and a half has brought a blossoming of studies on the Shepherd of Hermas , an influential Christian apocalyptic text from the second century ce . Most have been produced by specialists in Western Europe and North America publishing in German, French, Italian and English, but others writing in historically overlooked locales and languages are also contributing. Both groups reflect an increasing diversity of perspectives and approaches, which stands in tension with the sort of scholarship on the Shepherd that has typically appeared in the modern period. Despite the resurgence, precious few book-length projects have tackled research questions beyond those bounded by historical-criticism until Experiencing the Shepherd of Hermas (Berlin 2022) was edited by Angela Kim Harkins and Harry O. Maier, who rank among the most path-breaking scholars presently exploring this text. Their edited volume is a wide-ranging, invigorating contribution to knowledge that should fuel innovative work on the Shepherd and, by extension, early Christian literature in the future.