E. A. Judge’s academic career began at Canterbury University College, Christchurch, New Zealand, where he studied Philosophy just before Karl Popper left for London. However, his formal education focused on languages, culminating in 1949 with an M.A. with Honours in Latin, and in 1955 with the Classical Tripos at Cambridge. His first teaching appointments from 1948 were in languages, but from 1956 his formal discipline was History—first at the University of Sydney until 1968, then in the Second Chair of History at Macquarie University, where he remains Emeritus. In 1984, he was visiting Professor of Classics and History at the University of California, Berkeley, standing in for Erich Gruen and Peter Brown, respectively.
The connection between Classics and History for Judge began with a schoolboy desire to place the Pauline epistles within the history of culture. A landmark moment in his career came in 1960 with the publication of The Social Pattern of the Christian Groups in the First Century (Tyndale Press, London) and the launch of the Journal of Religious History, where Judge served as an associate editor responsible for reviews. Both had significant consequences.
As a scholar, Judge’s intellectual focus has been to understand the broader course of history through close analysis of linguistic and documentary details. Three collections of his papers have been published: (i) D. M. Scholer’s Social Distinctives of the Christians in the First Century (Hendrickson, 2008); (ii) J. R. Harrison’s The First Christians in the Roman World: Augustan and New Testament Essays (Mohr Siebeck, 2008); and (iii) A. M. Nobbs’ Jerusalem and Athens: Cultural Transformation in Late Antiquity (Mohr Siebeck, 2010). Across the 74 studies included in these volumes, a central theme emerges: the dynamism of the modern West arises from the tension between Athens and Jerusalem—two fundamentally incompatible worldviews now embedded in contemporary culture and society, unreconciled yet inescapable.
As an editor, Judge has played a foundational role in several academic publications, including The Journal of Religious History, The Journal of Christian Education, Antichthon: Journal of the Australasian Society for Classical Studies, Ancient History: Resources for Teachers, and Interchange: Papers on Biblical and Current Questions. He was also instrumental in the development of two monograph series: Sources in Ancient History and New Documents Illustrating Early Christianity.
As a teacher, Judge significantly influenced the scope and methods of Ancient World studies within the History curriculum. Under his leadership, the high-quality Graeco-Roman syllabus for the Higher School Certificate was expanded to include the Ancient Near East, incorporating both archaeological evidence and literary sources in translation. At the University of Sydney, the first-year survey course on the Ancient World was restructured to allow for advanced study up to thesis level. At Macquarie, the field of Ancient History was developed from an Early Modern base, providing historical access to subjects traditionally taught within Languages, Archaeology, and Divinity. This approach was grounded especially in the study of ancient texts inscribed on artefacts—coins, inscriptions, and papyri—retrieved through excavation.
Edwin Judge has been appointed a member of the Order of Australia, elected a member of the international Studiorum Novi Testamenti Societas, named an Honorary Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities, and awarded honorary Doctor of Letters degrees by both the University of Sydney and Macquarie University.