History simulations have been shown to promote student learning in classrooms throughout higher education. In an undergraduate course on the New Testament and early Christianity, we sought to foster student learning by having students participate in history simulations that involved the use of fictitious personas known as avatars. In this paper we describe the avatar activities in these simulations, and we examine the effects of our simulations on students’ abilities in “historical thinking”: that is, engaging in the interpretive practices that historians use to reconstruct the past. We argue that our avatar simulations helped our students build upon, refine, and deepen their abilities in historical thinking in small but perceptible ways. We end by noting the extent to which our findings align with research on the use of history simulations and by identifying ways to develop our project moving forward.

Most Enghsh translations of and commentaries on Paul's first letter to the Corinthians interpret the final clause of l Cor 214 causally: the psychic man is unable to know the things of God's pneuma "because they are pneumatically examined." Due to the flexibility of the Greek, however, three alternative, grammatically acceptable translations exist Although the causal interpretation is supported by later Christian interpreters of the first centuries CE, Paul's own grammatical preferences, the surrounding context of 1 Cor 2:6-16, and philosophical parallels contemporary with Paul's thought suggest that the following translation best reflects Paul's intentions: "the psychic man is unable to know that he is pneumatically examined."

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This essay focuses on the social functions of Paul’s letter writing activities, with the purpose of helping to situate such activities within the landscape of ancient Mediterranean epistolography and religion. After briefly identifying major areas of interest in recent research on Paul’s letter writing activities, the author examines the ways in which Paul’s epistolary practices advanced his goals in social positioning, community building, and virtue cultivation among Christ recruits. Letters were understood within classical antiquity to facilitate conversations among friends, reveal a writer’s character, and provide clear and concise instruction on a given subject. Letter writing also often contributed to the social capital of a letter’s author, insofar as letter writing displayed skills in literacy and textual production. Each of these epistolary functions would have advanced Paul’s goals regarding social positioning, community building, and moral development, thus making letters the ideal written medium for Paul to use in his apostolic activities.