Strange Encounter Episode 1

Behind the Scenes of My New Fiction Series

Kicking off my Substack

I’ve had in mind for a while to kick of a substack. The main reasons are (1) ease of posting, (2) clear and convenient analytics, (3) great interface, and (4) commenting/liking features.

I plan to do a couple of series on a weekly or semi-weekly basis. The first one is a companion to my new fiction series with Fathom Magazine called Strange Encounter.

Strange Encounter

If you haven’t started reading my series, you can check out episodes 1 and 2 HERE. This series offers a fictionalized scenario where two Romans (as in “Romanized” people) encounter Christians in the late first century AD. I wrote this to help readers today imagine what it was like for Christianity to emerge in the Roman world, within the dominance of Roman Religion. This fiction series (“Strange Encounter”) was inspired by my recent book, Strange Religion: How the First Christians Were Weird, Dangerous, and Compelling (Brazos Press, 2024).

Behind the Scenes (Ep 1)

**Spoiler Alert! Read the episode before reading this “behind-the-scenes.”!

Felix and Anna: I wanted the story to focus on a poor couple in Rome. I chose names of commoners in the Roman world. “Felix” meaning “lucky.” The name Anna was a known name in the Roman world, but it was also a Jewish name.

Insula/Insulae: They live in the common poor housing, similar to cheap apartment buildings today. In the story, it immediately becomes clear that there was a fire in the building. Household fires were extremely common because of the use of oil lamps. Also, there was no easy access to lots of water. Rome did have a military-run fire brigade, but they couldn’t address every situation in the massive city. (You can learn about the famous Roman fire of AD 64 HERE).

Lar Familiaris: The “lar” was the household fairy or spirit, the deity that protected the family. Archaeological remains from the ancient Roman empire have often unearthed “lararia” in homes, shrines devoted to the household lar.

Hermes: You probably guessed (spoiler!) that Hermes is a Christianos, a “Christian.” I actually drew his name from Romans 16:4. What was striking to me is that the person Hermes is named after the god Hermes (probably his birthname), but after he became a Christian he did not change his name. There are other examples in the NT like this. Hermes’ friend is Marcus; this was an extremely common name in the Roman world.

Soothsayer: I make brief mention of a “soothsayer.” I am currently researching prophecy and divination in the Greco-Roman world. People who claimed to have access to divine information and power—they were a dime a dozen in society. They were as common for them as gas stations for us, maybe the better analogy is our ability to buy scratch-off lottery tickets at stores and gas stations. I wanted to hint at the common assumption that there were certain people who had special access to the divine, though Romans knew that you couldn’t trust just anybody. Hucksters were everywhere.

Comments and feedback: I’d love to hear your thoughts and questions on the series (with Fathom) and the Behind-the-Scenes (BTS). Please comment, like, and ask questions, I’ll try to answer and may use your questions to prompt future posts.

Okay - that’s it! Stay tuned for a BTS for Ep2 coming soon…

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