John Stephens received his Phd in religious studies from the University of California, Santa Barbara in 1982. He has taught at both the secondary and post-secondary levels for the past thirty years.He is especially interested in studying and researching in the areas of ancient Mediterranean religious traditions, early Christianity and methodological approaches to the study of religion.
An analysis of the religious experiences of the Greco-Roman sophist, Aelius Aristides. As a member of the cult of Asclepius, Aristides recorded his nocturnal dreams, waking visions and spiritual healings in a diary entitled the Sacred Tales. A study of this diary sheds light on the spiritual environment of the Roman world in the first and second century CE.