Candida Moss

Candida R. Moss (born 26 November 1978) is an English New Testament scholar and historian of Christianity, who is the Edward Cadbury Professor of Theology in the Department of Theology and Religion at the University of Birmingham. A graduate of Oxford and Yale universities, Moss specialises in the study of the New Testament and martyrdom in early Christianity.

Born in London, England, Moss graduated from Worcester College, Oxford in 2000 with a B.A.(Hons) in theology. In 2002 she received a M.A.R. in Biblical studies from Yale Divinity School. In 2006, Moss graduated from Yale University with a M.A. and M.Phil in religious studies, followed by a PhD in Religious Studies in 2008.

Moss began her career at the University of Notre Dame in South Bend, Indiana and became a full Professor there in 2012, four years after receiving her PhD from Yale. She served as an academic consultant to the television series The Bible, as Papal News Contributor for CBS News, and is a frequent contributor to the National Geographic Channel. A Roman Catholic, Moss has specialized in the study of martyrdom. Her 2012 book Ancient Christian Martyrdom argued that bias against martyrdom had led scholars to think of martyrdom as a phenomenon that spread from one region of the Roman empire to another. Against this, Moss argued that martyrdom developed differently in different contexts. In 2013 her book The Myth of Persecution: How Early Christians Invented a Story of Martyrdom was published in which she argues that the stories of early Christian martyrdom "have been altered ... edited and shaped by later generations of Christians" and none of them are "completely historically accurate". Additionally, she maintains that the Roman authorities did not actively seek out or target Christians, and only for a brief period of no more than twelve years in the first three centuries of Christian history were Christians prosecuted by order of a Roman emperor.

In August 2017 Professor Moss joined the faculty of the Department of Theology and Religion at the University of Birmingham as Edward Cadbury Professor of Theology.

Moss is a columnist for The Daily Beast and has contributed to LA Times, Politico Magazine, New York Times, BBC.com, CNN.com, Washington Post, Huffington Post, The Chronicle of Higher Education, and Times Higher Education Supplement.

Among other marks of distinction, Moss received the Charlotte W. Newcombe Award from the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation, the John Templeton Award for Theological Promise from the John Templeton Foundation, and a NEH Summer Seminar Grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities. In 2015 she was shortlisted for the Hiett Prize and a Religion Newswriters Association award. In 2016 her co-authored book Reconceiving Infertility was shortlisted for the American Academy of Religion Book Prize for Textual Studies. She was elected a member of Studiorum Novi Testamenti Societas in 2013.

Thesis

• Moss, Candida (2008). Gods, Lords and Kings: the characterization of the martyrs in the early Christian Acta Martyrum (PhD). Yale University. OCLC 272271965.

Books

• Moss, Candida (2010). The Other Christs: Imitating Jesus in Ancient Christian Ideologies of Martyrdom. Oxford & New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780199739875.
• ——— (2012). Ancient Christian Martyrdom: Diverse Practices, Ideologies, and Traditions. Anchor Yale Bible Reference Library. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. ISBN 9780300154658.
• ——— (2013). The Myth of Persecution: How Early Christians Invented a Story of Martyrdom. New York: HarperOne. ISBN 978-0-06-210452-6.
• ———; Baden, Joel (2015). Reconceiving Infertility: Biblical Perspectives on Procreation and Childlessness. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. ISBN 0691164835.
• ———; Baden, Joel (2017). Bible Nation: The United States of Hobby Lobby. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. ISBN 9780691177359.
• ——— (2019). Divine Bodies: Resurrecting Perfection in the New Testament and Early Christianity. New Haven, Conn: Yale University Press. ISBN 9780300179767.
• ———; Schipper, Jeremy, eds. (2011). Disability Studies and Biblical Literature. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 9780230338296.
• ———; Nicklas, Tobias; Verheyden, Joseph; Tuckett, Christopher M., eds. (2017). The Other Side: Apocryphal Perspectives on Ancient Christian "Orthodoxies". Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. ISBN 9783525540589.