Demons, magic, and a diabolical lettuce

There was some discussion here recently about demons and exorcism, and this week I was reading some interesting new scholarship on the topic:

Scott Shauf, Theology as History, History as Theology: Paul in Ephesus in Acts 19 (BZNW 133; Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2005). This book includes extensive research into first-century magic and exorcism; and the book also sets itself the methodological task of exorcising Bultmann and Conzelmann.

Barbara Müller, “The Diabolical Power of Lettuce, or Garden Miracles in Gregory the Great’s Dialogues,” in Signs, Wonders, Miracles: Representations of Divine Power in the Life of the Church, ed. Kate Cooper and Jeremy Gregory (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2005), pp. 46-55. This is an entertaining paper about a sixth-century episode in which a demon-possessed lettuce is exorcised. Just when you thought it was safe to be a vegetarian....