Luke Timothy Johnson, an Emory University biblical scholar, has won the 2011 Louisville Grawemeyer Award in Religion for his book, "Among the Gentiles: Greco-Roman Religion and Christianity."
Johnson, who serves as the Robert W. Woodruff Professor of New Testament and Christian Origins at Emory's Candler School of Theology, said he was honored to receive the award for a book that he had a "great deal of fun writing." In the book Johnson proposes a new framework for analyzing early Christianity in its religious, social and historical contexts. It shows the common religious threads between Christians, Jews and pagans in ancient Rome and Greece.
The Grawemeyer Awards are presented annually for outstanding work in music composition, world order, psychology, education and religion. The religion prize is awarded jointly by the University of Louisville and the Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary.
The award carries a $100,000 prize.
Johnson, 67, said he would likely use the money to do something "dreadfully pedestrian like pay down my mortgage" instead of flying off to Tahiti. "I don't need to get my groove back."
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