M. David Litwa

Dr. Litwa is an expert in ancient Mediterranean religions with a focus on early Christianity and Koine Greek literature. He is known for writing heavily documented, peer-reviewed works in an accessible and engaging style.

His writing career began with a monograph on deification (becoming god) as seen through the lens of the Pauline writings (We Are Being Transformed 2012). In 2013, he offered a general introduction to deification in Western culture from the Pharaohs to modern Transhumanists. Then in 2016, he focused on the politics and literature of self-deification (Desiring Divinity). He has twice engaged gospel literature as a witness to Jesus’s literary deification (Iesus Deus, 2014) and to a myth-historical genre (How the Gospels Became History, 2019).

A fascination with alternative Christian movements inspired him to edit and translate the anonymous Refutation of All Heresies (2016). After that came the annotated translation of important Hermetic testimonia and fragments (Hermetica II, 2018). Litwa has finished a project on angelification traditions in Hellenic and Christian literature (Posthuman Transformation, forthcoming 2021). He has published history of alternative Christian movements in the second-century CE (Found Christianities). A full book on one of these movements, the Carpocratians, came out in 2022. It contains the first ever fully commentary on "Secret Mark." Dr. Litwa also has separate monographs on pivotal Christian gnostic thinkers like Simon of Samaria, Basilides, Valentinus, and Marcion (2024-25). His renowned work The Evil Creator (2021), tells the history of how Christians came to view the creator as evil. Late Revelations is a short, accessible argument for a late date of the final form of the Gospels and Acts. Hermetica I is a new translation plus short commentary on the Corpus Hermeticum designed for both academics and spiritual seekers.

For skeptics and apologists alike, Dr Litwa offers up-to-date, scholarly translations of Celsus (True Teaching), Porphyry (Against the Christians), and Julian (Against the Apostates). His book Critics of Christianity combines all three translations.