About

Steven J. Friesen is a Professor and the Louise Farmer Boyer Chair in Biblical Studies at the University of Texas at Austin's College of Liberal Arts. His academic focus includes the social history of the early Christian churches, Roman imperial cults, Revelation and apocalypticism, indigenous religions, and the social locations and functions of religion. As a distinguished faculty member, he contributes to the understanding of religious developments and social dynamics in historical contexts, engaging with both scholarly research and teaching within the liberal arts framework.

Research topics

• Political Science
• Sociology
• Geology
• Geotechnical engineering
• Geomorphology
• Law
• Religious studies
• Statistics
• Philosophy
• Geography
• Engineering
• Physics
• Structural engineering
• Seismology
• Mathematics

Selected publications

• Labours of the Saints and the Collection for Jerusalem

  Religion in the Roman Empire · 2024-01-01

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  to premodern societies since both terms are defined by ideological struggles between capitalism and Marxism. So I begin by reformulating the topic for a precapitalist setting and by locating it within networks of exchange in a tributary mode of production. Using this framework, the article examines an innovative and perhaps unprecedented project by the apostle Paul in which he sought to collect capital from the daily labours of his multi-ethnic network of Christ groups in several cities and to distribute it to poor people in the Christ groups of Jerusalem. Pauls ideological support for the experimental project was eclectic, and if effective, the exchange had the potential to suppress objections to his activism from Jerusalem-based Christ groups. This movement of capital flowed away from Rome and toward a province that was difficult to control. So while the collection for Jerusalem attempted to realign ethnicity within the networks of Christ groups, this redistribution of capital also violated the imperial ideology of ethnicities that undergirded Roman hegemony.

  PublisherDOI

• Site Characterization Data for Site Response Modeling in Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta Region of California

  2023-03-23

  articleCorresponding

  Sites located in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta region of Northern California typically have peaty organic soils near the ground surface. These soils are characteristically soft, with shear wave velocities as low as 30 m/s, and may be present to depths as great as 15 m. These unusually soft geotechnical conditions will produce significant site effects in the event of a strong earthquake, and are not expected to be reliably predicted using existing ergodic site amplification models. This study presents site characterization data related to stratigraphy, shear wave velocity (VS), and microtremor-based horizontal-to-vertical spectral ratio (mHVSR) surveys collected across the delta and archived as part of a project to develop a delta-specific site response model. Spatial variations of time-averaged shear wave velocity 30 m (VS30) across the delta region are mapped and compared to other site parameters. An analysis of 14 sites with HVSR and VS profile data shows examples of sites with and without mHVSR peaks. Sites without peaks also lack layer boundaries with large impedance contrasts within the range of the VS profile. Sites with peaks have such boundaries in some but not all cases.

  PublisherDOI

• Remembering 9/11: Religious Maximalism in the United States of America Twenty Years after the Attacks

  Reflexão · 2022 · 1 citations

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Political Science
  • Sociology
  • Law

  On September 11, 2001, Al Qaeda partisans hijacked four American airliners. Three of the planes struck their targets:the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon outside of Washington, DC. In “Holy Terrors: Thinkingabout Religion after September 11” (2nd ed., 2006), Bruce Lincoln made several provocative proposals about thestudy of religion and the category of fundamentalism, based on his reflection after those attacks. This articleextends some of Lincoln’s proposals by refining his category “religious maximalism” in terms of his four domains of religion (transcendent discourse, practices, community, and regulatory institution), rather than considering it as a replacement for the category “fundamentalism” or as a global religious pattern. The article then examines several presidential speeches to chart the progress of Christian maximalism in the United States of America. The last four presidential speeches before the 20th anniversary of 9/11 were delivered by President Donald Trump. These speeches deemphasized religion, ignored history, disregarded basic factual accuracy, and promoted the authoritarian use of power. These signaled a move not toward religious maximalism, but rather toward racist nationalism. The article concludes that American Christian maximalists who helped elect President Trump did not gain control of the national transcendent discourse during his term of office, but they did gain considerable control of judicial and legislative power. It remains to be seen whether they can use their power in the national regulatory institutions to move the United States of America toward Christian maximalism in the long wake of 9/11.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Class and Ideology in Acts 16: The Philippian Narrative as a Failed Revolution

  2021-11-17

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding

  This paper uses Fredric Jameson’s work to locate the Philippian stories of Acts 16 within History that hurts; i.e., the catalogue of failed liberatory struggles that define “the inexorable limits of individual and corporate praxis.” The literary features in Acts 16 identify mainstream society’s hostility toward the apostles as the social contradiction that the narrative tries to resolve. The class conflicts manifest in the attempted resolution show that the implied author’s sympathies lie primarily with the upper middle bourgeoisie – the merchants, the jailers, the householders, in short, the relatively powerful class fraction that made a living off the labor of others but did not dominate city, region, or empire. While the text is a failed revolution in the sense that it also participates in multiple forms of alienation of Roman imperial life (e.g., slavery, household, patriarchy, commodity, and prison), the ephemeral reconciliation of the imprisoned apostles with their captor provides a fleeting glimpse of the text’s impossible vision for the shape of social life beyond alienation.

  PublisherDOI

• Using Conditional Random Fields for a Spatially Variable Liquefiable Foundation Layer in Nonlinear Dynamic Analyses of Embankments

  Journal of Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental Engineering · 2021 · 8 citations

  Senior authorCorresponding
  • Geotechnical engineering
  • Geology
  • Structural engineering

  Two-dimensional nonlinear dynamic analyses (NDAs) are performed for a series of hypothetical embankment dams on a spatially variable liquefiable foundation layer to evaluate the utility of representing the foundation layer with random fields conditioned on different levels of site characterization information. A set of two-dimensional parent models (PMs), each representing a true foundation condition, were generated using unconditional random fields of equivalent clean sand, corrected standard penetration test (N1)60cs values. Different levels of site characterization were then represented by combining different numbers of local borings (i.e., columns of data from the PM) with the optional inclusion of constraints on the geostatistical properties that might come from sitewide explorations. NDAs were performed using the same input motions for the PM (which represents perfect knowledge of soil conditions), a set of realizations conditioned on the local borings alone, and a set of realizations conditioned on the local borings with sitewide statistics. Embankment deformations obtained for the conditional realizations are compared to those for the PM to evaluate the potential benefits of increasing levels of site characterization in terms of deformation prediction accuracy. Parametric analyses include varying the embankment size, scales of fluctuation in the foundation stratum, number of conditioning borings, and ground motions. The results of these comparisons illustrate that the beneficial effects of using conditional random fields were generally limited to cases with the horizontal scale of fluctuation approaching the scale of the embankment base width and to cases with a large number of borings (more than three borings per horizontal scale of fluctuation), which may not be practical in many situations. Additional potential benefits and limitations of using conditional random fields for representing spatial variable liquefiable foundation layers in embankment dam NDAs are discussed.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Preliminary Material

  2021-11-17

  book-chapterOpen access1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Nonlinear Dynamic Analyses of Perris Dam Using Transition Probability to Model Interbedded Alluvial Strata

  Journal of Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental Engineering · 2021 · 7 citations

  Senior authorCorresponding
  • Geology
  • Geotechnical engineering
  • Geomorphology

  This case study presents an application of a conditional transition probability method for interpreting subsurface stratigraphy for the interbedded alluvium underlying Perris Dam, and evaluating the effects of stratigraphic uncertainty on nonlinear dynamic analysis (NDA) results for design earthquake loading. The challenges involved in synthesizing information from different sources (i.e., geologic conditions, site investigation tools, lab data, field classifications) into soil categories for interbedded alluvium were examined. The application of conditional transition probability methods for developing three-dimensional (3D) realizations of the upper Holocene and lower Pleistocene alluvial strata over a 305-m-wide interval along the dam alignment is described, including challenges with insufficient data and limitations involved with utilizing a stationary, geostatistical method for approximating nonstationary geologic conditions. Two-dimensional (2D) NDA models of Perris Dam were created by slicing the 3D transition probability realizations into five 2D cross sections. The constitutive models PM4Sand and PM4Silt were used to model the sand and clay soil categories in the alluvial strata, as well as the different zones in the embankment. The deformations and variability in deformations for each cross section were compared, and sensitivity studies were completed to examine the impact of several factors, including impacts of the small-strain shear modulus for the alluvium, mean lengths and sills for the alluvium categories, strengths for each alluvium soil category, and different ground motions. NDA cross sections of Perris Dam with uniformly (noncategorical) distributed properties were performed with and without additional deterministic embedded soil lenses, and the deformations were compared with transition probability models and deterministic models completed by others. The use of conditional transition probability models for NDAs of Perris Dam, along with implications and lessons for practice, are discussed.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Philippi, From <i>Colonia Augusta</i> to <i>Communitas Christiana</i>

  2021-08-14

  book1st authorCorresponding

  This volume provides a review of recent research in Philippi related to archaeology, demography, religion, the New Testament and early Christianity. Careful reading of texts, inscriptions, coins and other archaeological materials allow the reader to examine how religious practice in Philippi changed as the city moved from being a Hellenistic polis to a Roman colony to a center for Christian worship and pilgrimage. The essays raise questions about traditional understandings of material culture in Philippi, and come to conclusions that reflect more complicated and diverse views of the city and its inhabitants.

  PublisherDOI

• Class Analysis in the Book of Revelation:

  SBL Press eBooks · 2021-10-08

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• The Beast from the Land:

  SBL Press eBooks · 2017-09-07 · 2 citations

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Daniel Schowalter

  8 shared

• Scott J. Brandenberg

  University of California, Los Angeles

  4 shared

• Tristan E. Buckreis

  University of California, Los Angeles

  4 shared

• Jonathan P. Stewart

  University of California, Los Angeles

  4 shared

• Nicholas A. Paull

  ORCID

  4 shared

• Suzette Brémault‐Phillips

  University of Alberta

  3 shared

• Jason T. DeJong

  3 shared

• Walter Scheidel

  2 shared