David Martinez is a classicist and papyrologist whose research and teaching focus on Greek papyrology and paleography, Hellenistic authors, early Christian literature, and the Hellenistic background of the New Testament. He has written two books on magical and early Christian documents, as well as articles on documentary Greek papyri and ancient Greek religion and magic. His current projects include the publication of the papyri collection from the University of Texas at Austin, which mainly date from the Ptolemaic period and include several documentary types which document the activity and ethos of Hellenistic-era guilds. He is also at work on projects which concern the papyri as evidence for ancient Greek religion, cult, and ritual, as well as articles that relate papyrological research to the study of Hellenistic Judaism and early Christianity. Other areas of teaching and research interest include Greek prose, especially rhetoric and philosophy, the Corpus Hermeticum, patristics, the interpretatio Graeca of Egyptian culture and religion in authors such as Herodotus and Plutarch, and the classical world and the Ancient Near East.
Recent Publications
- “Review of P.Oxy. LXXXII.” Bulletin of the American Society of Papyrologists 55 (2018), 336-42.
- “Papyrology.” The Oxford Handbook of Ancient Greek Religion (Oxford, 2015), 131-47.
- “Achilleus’ Vow of Abstinence: Iliad 19.205-210.” Métis 10 (2012), 39-51.
- P. Michigan XIX. Baptized for our Sakes: A Leather Trisagion from Egypt (Stuttgart and Leipzig, 1999).
- P. Michigan XVI: A Greek Love Charm from Egypt (Atlanta, 1991).