Daniel J. Kimmel

Daniel J. Kimmel joins the faculty of Lewis & Clark College as the Visiting Assistant Professor of Religion & Classics for the 25-26 AY, having completed their doctorate with distinction at Syracuse University in May 2025. Daniel’s research and teaching expertise encompass religion, philosophy, and magic in the ancient Mediterranean (c. 500 BCE to c. 500 CE), with a focus in late ancient Judaism & Christianity. Daniel teaches courses on topics that include: Jewish and Christian origins, Ancient Greek religion & mythology, Greco-Roman religion & philosophy, Roman thought & culture, and healing & magic in the ancient world. Daniel is an active member of the North American Patristics Society and of the American Academy of Religion, where they serve as a member of the Platonism & Neoplatonism Unit Steering Committee.

Specialty

Religion & Philosophy in the Roman Empire, History of Christianity, Magic in Antiquity, Neoplatonism & Theurgy

Academic Credentials

PhD 2025, with distinction, Syracuse University
MPhil 2021 Syracuse University
MA 2016 Lehigh University
BA 2014, with honors, Lebanon Valley College

Teaching

Fall 2025 Courses

CLAS 202: Roman Thought and Culture 
MWF 12:40pm-1:40pm
Introduction to ancient Roman thought and culture as reflected in archaeology, architecture, art, history, literature, philosophy, and religion. Special emphasis on the core values of ancient
Roman culture, and how these compare and contrast to our own.

RELS 224: Jewish Origins
MWF 9:10am-10:10am
Exploration of early Judaism, from circa 450 B.C.E. to 200 C.E. Focus on the development of the religion in the multicultural, pluralistic context of the Greco-Roman world. Study of the archaeological and written evidence for Jewish origins (i.e., the archaeology and literature of pre-Jewish Israelite religion and of early Jewish communities in Egypt and Palestine, the Hebrew Bible, the Dead Sea Scrolls and the related excavations at Qumran, documentary and literary texts of Jews in Egypt, and related archaeological evidence). Analysis of key themes in the study of early Judaism (i.e., gender, colonialism, multiculturalism and identity, early Judaism’s relationship to earliest Christianity).

RELS 350: Social and Religious World of Early Judaism and Christianity 
TTH 11:30am-1:00pm
Recent research into the relationship between the social setting of early Judaism and Christianity and the texts both religions produced. Special attention to the sociohistorical aspects of selected regional expressions of Judaism and Christianity (e.g., Asia Minor, Palestine, Egypt). Readings from the Dead Sea Scrolls, Jewish pseudepigrapha, the New Testament, other early Christian literature, and media interpretations of Judaism and Christianity to the present.

Research

At present, Daniel is working on journal articles and a proposal for their first monograph,
Plucked Into Freedom (working title), based on their dissertation, Genealogies of Religion & 
Humanity in the Divine Institutes of Lactantius — awarded the 2025 SU College of Arts &
Sciences Doctoral Prize for superior achievement in completed dissertations. The monograph
will examine how early Christian thought transformed classical ideas about liberty and human
dignity through a study of the fourth-century statesman Lactantius. Written in response to the
Diocletianic persecution as Christianity stood on the cusp of political power, his Divine
Institutes, Daniel argues, creatively refashioned classical republican philosophy and imperial
jurisprudence to propose a radical vision of religious freedom and human community under the
auspices of a novel legal formula Lactantius calls the “law of humanity and kinship”.
Lactantius’s thought, Daniel illuminates, influenced both the earliest policy on religious liberty (i.e., the “Edict of Milan”) and later proponents of humanism and tolerance like Erasmus and John Locke. By tracing these connections, Daniel aims to show how the Divine Institutes bridges ancient and modern concepts of religion, freedom, and human rights, complicating the genealogies of religion and humanity in the process.

Professional Experience

Academic Presentations

“The Liturgy of Empire: Platonism, Monotheism, and Licinius’ ‘prayer to the supreme god’ in On the Death of the Persecutors.” For presentation at the American Academy of Religion Annual Meeting; Society of Biblical Literature Unit: Prayer in Antiquity. Boston, MA. November 2025.

“‘There is nothing that is so much a matter of willingness as religio’: Slavery, Human Rights, and Religious Liberty in Lactantius’ Divine Institutes.” Presented at the North American Patristics Society 53 rd Annual Meeting; Thematic Session: Reading Slavery into the Sources. Chicago, IL. May 2024.

“Platonism, Theurgy, and Lactantius’ Divine Institutes.” Presented at the American Academy of Religion Annual Meeting; Unit: Platonism and Neoplatonism; Thematic Session: One and Many in Plato and the Platonic Tradition: Varieties of Platonism. Denver, CO. November 2022.

“Written on ‘Empire’s Palimpsest’ Alone?: Religion and Justice in Lactantius’ Divine
Institutes.” Presented at the North America Patristics Society 52 nd Annual Meeting; Thematic Session: Apologetics in the Fourth Century. Chicago, IL. May 2022. Nominated by the Syracuse University Faculty of Religion for the 2024 SU Mary Hatch Marshall Award.

“Resignifying Religio(n): Lactantius and the Divine Institutes.” Presented at the North
American Patristics Society 50th/51st Annual Meeting. Online. May 2021. Awarded the NAPS 2021 Outstanding Graduate Student Paper Prize.

Language Competencies

Latin, Ancient Greek, French, German.

Teaching Experience

Visiting Assistant Professor of Religion & Classics, Lewis & Clark College, Department of Religious Studies (2025-2026)

Courses: Ancient Greek Myth; Christian Origins; Health and Healing in the Ancient
World; Jewish Origins; Roman Thought & Culture; Social & Religious Worlds of Early
Judaism and Christianity.

Adjunct Professor, Le Moyne College, Department of Religious Studies (2025)

Courses: Christianity in Dialogue with World Religions.

Instructor/Teaching Assistant, Syracuse University, Department of Religion (2018-2025)

Courses (Instructor): Ancient Magic; Greco-Roman Religion; Saints & Martyrs in
Christian Tradition (guest lecture).

Courses (TA): Ancient Greek Religion; Christianity; Judaism; Mythologies; Religions of
the World; The Bible in History, Culture, and Religion.

Teaching Fellow (Instructor), Lehigh University, Department of English (2014-2016)

Courses: Introduction to Composition, Literature, and Rhetoric I; Introduction to
Composition, Literature, and Rhetoric II.

Select Service & Institutional Governance Experience

56th/57th President of the Graduate Student Body & Chief Executive Officer, Graduate Student Organization, Syracuse University (2023-2024; 2024-2025)

Graduate Representative, Syracuse University Statement of Academic Freedom & Free
Expression Task Force, Syracuse University (Spring 2024)

54th/55th Vice President of Internal Affairs & Chair of the Senate, Graduate Student Organization, Syracuse University (2021-2022; 2022-2023)

Co-President, Religion Graduate Organization, Syracuse University (2019-2020; 2020-2021;
2021-2022)

Graduate Representative, Vice Chancellor, Provost, and Chief Academic Officer Search
Committee, Syracuse University (Spring 2021)

University Senator, Graduate Student Organization, Syracuse University (2018-2019; 2019-
2020; 2020-2021)

Select Academic Honors, Awards, and Certificates

The Syracuse University College of Arts & Sciences Doctoral Prize for Superior Achievement in Completed Dissertations (Spring 2025)

Certificate of University Teaching, Syracuse University (Spring 2025)

Outstanding Teaching Assistant Award, Syracuse University (Spring 2024)

North American Patristics Society Outstanding Graduate Student Paper Prize (2021)

Teacher Development Program Certificate, Level II, Lehigh University (Spring 2015)

Teacher Development Program Certificate, Level I, Lehigh University (Fall 2014)

LVC Interfaith Certificate, Lebanon Valley College (Spring 2014)