Dylan Burns
Senior assistant professor (universitair docent 1) of the History of Esotericism in Late Antiquity, University of Amsterdam.
I was born in Rochester, NY and raised in Jacksonville, FL and Boulder, CO. I Earned my B.A. (Religion, 2003) at Reed College (Portland, OR), where I began my research into Neoplatonism and religion in late antiquity, focusing on theurgy in the thought of the fifth-century philosopher, Proclus Diadochus. I traveled to the Netherlands to continue this work, earning an M.A. in Religious Studies from the Universiteit van Amsterdam (2004), and diving into the world of early Christianity and especially Gnosticism and the Coptic Gnostic texts discovered at Nag Hammadi, Egypt, in 1945, topics that occupied the bulk of my doctoral studies at Yale University (Religious Studies, Ph.D., 2011). As a postdoc at the University of Copenhagen, I wrote, gave workshops, and taught on early Christianity and Greek philosophy. From 2013 to 2021, I served as Office Manager (Dienststellenleiter) of the Database and Dictionary of Greek Loanwords in Coptic project at the Freie Universität Berlin, serving as part of a team putting together the groundwork for a dictionary of Greek loanwords in Coptic. Since 2021 I have had the privilege of researching and teaching in the capacity of the position of Assistant Professor of the History of Esotericism in Late Antiquity at the Universiteit van Amsterdam's Center for the History of Hermetic Philosophy and Related Currents. In the meantime I continue my explorations of the religious world of late antiquity, focusing on the regions today encompassing Greece, Egypt, Turkey, Israel-Palestine, Jordan, Syria, and Iraq. I am co-managing editor of Nag Hammadi and Manichaean Studies (Brill; 2018-present), and have served twice as co-chair of the steering committee of the Society of Biblical Literature's program unit "Nag Hammadi and Gnosticism" (International meeting, 2017-2022; Annual Meeting 2012-17).
My second monograph, on providence, fate, and individual responsibility in ancient philosophy, is titled Did God Care? Providence, Dualism, and Will in Later Greek and Early Christian Philosophy, and is published in the series Studies in Platonism, Neoplatonism, and the Platonic Tradition (Brill). My first book, Apocalypse of the Alien God (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2014) discusses the importance of several Gnostic apocalypses discovered at Nag Hammadi for understanding developments in contemporary Greek philosophy (what I call "the acute Hellenization of Neoplatonism") as well as religious groups flourishing on the borderlines of early Christianity and ancient Judaism, like the Elchasaites and the Manichaeans. I continued this work on the relationship between Gnosticism and various biblicizing religions of late antiquity, particularly Judaism, in many publications, most recently the edited volume The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Nag Hammadi Codices (Brill, 2022). I have also investigated the reception of Gnostic sources in contemporary religion: a volume which I co-edited on the reception of ancient Mediterranean religion in contemporary alternative religious currents - focusing on Neo-Paganism and Neo-Gnosticism - appeared in spring 2019.
In my spare time, my interests include cooking, green tea, hiking, movies, music, and (of course) reading!
Address: Postal address:
Universiteit van Amsterdam
Centre for the History of Hermetic Philosophy and Related Currents
Postbus 1622
1000 BP Amsterdam
Netherlands
Visiting address:
Universiteit van Amsterdam
Kloveniersburgwal 48
Bushuis
1012 CX Amsterdam
Netherlands
I was born in Rochester, NY and raised in Jacksonville, FL and Boulder, CO. I Earned my B.A. (Religion, 2003) at Reed College (Portland, OR), where I began my research into Neoplatonism and religion in late antiquity, focusing on theurgy in the thought of the fifth-century philosopher, Proclus Diadochus. I traveled to the Netherlands to continue this work, earning an M.A. in Religious Studies from the Universiteit van Amsterdam (2004), and diving into the world of early Christianity and especially Gnosticism and the Coptic Gnostic texts discovered at Nag Hammadi, Egypt, in 1945, topics that occupied the bulk of my doctoral studies at Yale University (Religious Studies, Ph.D., 2011). As a postdoc at the University of Copenhagen, I wrote, gave workshops, and taught on early Christianity and Greek philosophy. From 2013 to 2021, I served as Office Manager (Dienststellenleiter) of the Database and Dictionary of Greek Loanwords in Coptic project at the Freie Universität Berlin, serving as part of a team putting together the groundwork for a dictionary of Greek loanwords in Coptic. Since 2021 I have had the privilege of researching and teaching in the capacity of the position of Assistant Professor of the History of Esotericism in Late Antiquity at the Universiteit van Amsterdam's Center for the History of Hermetic Philosophy and Related Currents. In the meantime I continue my explorations of the religious world of late antiquity, focusing on the regions today encompassing Greece, Egypt, Turkey, Israel-Palestine, Jordan, Syria, and Iraq. I am co-managing editor of Nag Hammadi and Manichaean Studies (Brill; 2018-present), and have served twice as co-chair of the steering committee of the Society of Biblical Literature's program unit "Nag Hammadi and Gnosticism" (International meeting, 2017-2022; Annual Meeting 2012-17).
My second monograph, on providence, fate, and individual responsibility in ancient philosophy, is titled Did God Care? Providence, Dualism, and Will in Later Greek and Early Christian Philosophy, and is published in the series Studies in Platonism, Neoplatonism, and the Platonic Tradition (Brill). My first book, Apocalypse of the Alien God (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2014) discusses the importance of several Gnostic apocalypses discovered at Nag Hammadi for understanding developments in contemporary Greek philosophy (what I call "the acute Hellenization of Neoplatonism") as well as religious groups flourishing on the borderlines of early Christianity and ancient Judaism, like the Elchasaites and the Manichaeans. I continued this work on the relationship between Gnosticism and various biblicizing religions of late antiquity, particularly Judaism, in many publications, most recently the edited volume The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Nag Hammadi Codices (Brill, 2022). I have also investigated the reception of Gnostic sources in contemporary religion: a volume which I co-edited on the reception of ancient Mediterranean religion in contemporary alternative religious currents - focusing on Neo-Paganism and Neo-Gnosticism - appeared in spring 2019.
In my spare time, my interests include cooking, green tea, hiking, movies, music, and (of course) reading!
Address: Postal address:
Universiteit van Amsterdam
Centre for the History of Hermetic Philosophy and Related Currents
Postbus 1622
1000 BP Amsterdam
Netherlands
Visiting address:
Universiteit van Amsterdam
Kloveniersburgwal 48
Bushuis
1012 CX Amsterdam
Netherlands
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Books by Dylan Burns
Apocalypse of the Alien God proposes a radical interpretation of these long-lost apocalypses, placing them firmly in the context of Judeo-Christian authorship rather than ascribing them to a pagan offshoot of Gnosticism. According to Burns, this Sethian literature emerged along the fault lines between Judaism and Christianity, drew on traditions known to scholars from the Dead Sea Scrolls and Enochic texts, and ultimately catalyzed the rivalry of Platonism with Christianity. Plunging the reader into the culture wars and classrooms of the high Empire, Apocalypse of the Alien God offers the most concrete social and historical description available of any group of Gnostic Christians as it explores the intersections of ancient Judaism, Christianity, Hellenism, myth, and philosophy.