The academic interdisciplinary study of law and religion is in a unique place, brimming with hope and promise. This constellation of scholars, conferences, journals, academic centers, books and book series, and public interest law firms has matured considerably since the “path-breaking” commencement of the movement, the publication of Harold Berman's 1974 short book, The Interaction of Law and Religion. No longer can the study of law and religion be solely identified with the study of the First Amendment's religion clauses. Scholars have explored topics both large scale and fine grain in history, church law, the intersection of religious ethics and law, religion and international human rights law, and in other subareas of the field.

Here is a model for “legal theology,” a way of learning and teaching about God that arises in and responds to the desire to understand the significance of law: a son is moved to ask “what is the meaning” of the law followed by his father, and the father is commanded to explain by teaching about God's deliverance. There are three similar commands in Exodus (Exodus 12:26, 13:8, 13:14), linked in tradition, where sons wonder and fathers are commanded to explain how a particular law signifies God's redemption. These four commands in Exodus and Deuteronomy indicate a method for legal theology.

This essay was presented as a 2016 McDonald Distinguished Scholar Lecture at the Center for the Study of Law and Religion, Emory University.

Tom Dougherty has recently argued that non-consequentialists cannot accommodate our judgements about acceptable levels of risk-imposition. More specifically, he argues that the following two intuitively plausible claims are inconsistent: (i) that it is impermissible to provide small benefits to many people rather than saving the life of someone else, and (ii) that it is permissible to expose someone to a negligible risk of death in order to otherwise provide this person with a small benefit. Abandoning either principle has significant consequences: rejecting (i) requires rejecting an important argument against consequentialism and consequentialist approaches to beneficence; rejecting (ii) requires radically rethinking the way we live our lives, as we routinely expose individuals to negligible risks of death. This article shows that Dougherty's argument relies on a scope ambiguity involving permissibility. Once this ambiguity is resolved, Dougherty's argument fails.

This article addresses questions relating to the ‘Frontiers of the Roman Empire World Heritage Site’ and seeks to introduce into this initiative some concepts derived from recent writings on contemporary mobilities and bordering, exploring the possibility of creating greater engagement between the two academic fields of ‘border studies’ and ‘Roman Frontier Studies’. By examining the relationship between the Roman Frontiers initiative and the European Union's stated aims of integration and the dissolution of borders, it argues in favour of crossing intellectual borders between the study of the present and the past to promote the value of the Roman frontiers as a means of reflecting on contemporary problems facing Europe. This article considers the potential roles of Roman Frontier Studies in this debate by emphasizing frontiers as places of encounter and transformation.

This essay was presented as the 2015 McDonald Distinguished Scholar Lecture at the Center for the Study of Law and Religion, Emory University.

The circulation of bronze is considered to be the principal vehicle of social reproduction for the later Bronze Age, with significant social investment in trade networks, systems of exchange, and social alliances. Substantial social upheaval is implied by the decline of bronze, as attested by the widespread deposition of hoards towards the end of this period. This article aims to fill a lacuna between the period of peak bronze hoarding and other vectors of change such as the manipulation of grain surpluses or the creation of hillforts. The reorganization of the Wiltshire landscape signifies transformation to a transhumant regime. Animals became increasingly important at the end of the Bronze Age, with daily life revolving around their management, dictating seasonal movement, and interaction. Investment in the social value of animals beyond pure subsistence requirements was a major factor filling the social gap left by the demise of bronze. This was accompanied by changes in the mode of production and the scales of social engagement.

The balloon has long drifted through popular discourse as a symbol of an Enlightenment attitude towards discovery and a Romanticized image of rationality. This article uses two accounts of early British balloon voyages, both published in 1786, and through them attempts to understand the wide range of practices – literary, social, chemical and adventurous – employed by early balloonists in Britain. I argue that the two series of flights recorded by John Jeffries and Vincenzo Lunardi can be read to show two different philosophical ideas of and aspirations for ballooning, each of which is tied to a different British location, and established a different paradigm for the public reception of flight experiments in later years.