Dynamics Of Identity In The World Of The Early Christians

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Dynamics of Identity in the World of the Early Christians

Author : Philip A. Harland
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing USA
Page : 256 pages
File Size : 40,8 Mb
Release : 2009-11-19
Category : Religion
ISBN : 9780567457363

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Dynamics of Identity in the World of the Early Christians by Philip A. Harland Pdf

This study sheds new light on identity formation and maintenance in the world of the early Christians by drawing on neglected archaeological and epigraphic evidence concerning associations and immigrant groups and by incorporating insights from the social sciences. The study's unique contribution relates, in part, to its interdisciplinary character, standing at the intersection of Christian Origins, Jewish Studies, Classical Studies, and the Social Sciences. It also breaks new ground in its thoroughly comparative framework, giving the Greek and Roman evidence its due, not as mere background but as an integral factor in understanding dynamics of identity among early Christians. This makes the work particularly well suited as a text for courses that aim to understand early Christian groups and literature, including the New Testament, in relation to their Greek, Roman, and Judean contexts. Inscriptions pertaining to associations provide a new angle of vision on the ways in which members in Christian congregations and Jewish synagogues experienced belonging and expressed their identities within the Greco-Roman world. The many other groups of immigrants throughout the cities of the empire provide a particularly appropriate framework for understanding both synagogues of Judeans and groups of Jesus-followers as minority cultural groups in these same contexts. Moreover, there were both shared means of expressing identity (including fictive familial metaphors) and peculiarities in the case of both Jews and Christians as minority cultural groups, who (like other "foreigners") were sometimes characterized as dangerous, alien "anti-associations". By paying close attention to dynamics of identity and belonging within associations and cultural minority groups, we can gain new insights into Pauline, Johannine, and other early Christian communities.

Dynamics of Identity in the World of the Early Christians

Author : Philip A. Harland
Publisher : A&C Black
Page : 255 pages
File Size : 46,7 Mb
Release : 2009-11-19
Category : Religion
ISBN : 9780567111463

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Dynamics of Identity in the World of the Early Christians by Philip A. Harland Pdf

This study sheds new light on identity formation and maintenance in the world of the early Christians by drawing on neglected archaeological and epigraphic evidence concerning associations and immigrant groups and by incorporating insights from the social sciences. The study's unique contribution relates, in part, to its interdisciplinary character, standing at the intersection of Christian Origins, Jewish Studies, Classical Studies, and the Social Sciences. It also breaks new ground in its thoroughly comparative framework, giving the Greek and Roman evidence its due, not as mere background but as an integral factor in understanding dynamics of identity among early Christians. This makes the work particularly well suited as a text for courses that aim to understand early Christian groups and literature, including the New Testament, in relation to their Greek, Roman, and Judean contexts. Inscriptions pertaining to associations provide a new angle of vision on the ways in which members in Christian congregations and Jewish synagogues experienced belonging and expressed their identities within the Greco-Roman world. The many other groups of immigrants throughout the cities of the empire provide a particularly appropriate framework for understanding both synagogues of Judeans and groups of Jesus-followers as minority cultural groups in these same contexts. Moreover, there were both shared means of expressing identity (including fictive familial metaphors) and peculiarities in the case of both Jews and Christians as minority cultural groups, who (like other "foreigners") were sometimes characterized as dangerous, alien "anti-associations". By paying close attention to dynamics of identity and belonging within associations and cultural minority groups, we can gain new insights into Pauline, Johannine, and other early Christian communities.

Rethinking Early Christian Identity

Author : Maia Kotrosits
Publisher : Augsburg Fortress Publishers
Page : 279 pages
File Size : 52,6 Mb
Release : 2015
Category : Religion
ISBN : 9781451492651

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Rethinking Early Christian Identity by Maia Kotrosits Pdf

Revision of author's thesis (Ph. D.)--Union Theological Seminary, 2013 under title: Affect, violence, and belonging in early Christianity.

Clothing the Body of Christ at Colossae

Author : Rosemary Canavan
Publisher : Mohr Siebeck
Page : 276 pages
File Size : 51,5 Mb
Release : 2012
Category : Bible
ISBN : 3161517164

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Clothing the Body of Christ at Colossae by Rosemary Canavan Pdf

What we think of our bodies and what we wear says something about who we are and how we belong. This was the same in the ancient world. Rosemary Canavan explores the imagery of clothing and body in the first century CE Christian writing. An examination of statuary, funerary monuments and coins in this geographical location contemporaneous with the letter's writing reveals how clothing and body images were understood. This is then placed in dialogue with the metaphorical use of clothing and body in other texts, especially the Letter to the Colossians. Social identity and rhetorical studies draw on archaeological, epigraphical, iconographical and literary sources to formulate a new approach to biblical interpretation aptly named "visual exegesis."

The World of Jesus and the Early Church

Author : Craig A Evans
Publisher : Hendrickson Publishers
Page : 286 pages
File Size : 52,5 Mb
Release : 2022-05-03
Category : Religion
ISBN : 9781598569186

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The World of Jesus and the Early Church by Craig A Evans Pdf

How do religious texts impact the way communities of faith understand themselves? In The World of Jesus and the Early Church: Identity and Interpretation in Early Communities of Faith Craig Evans leads an interdisciplinary team of scholars to discover and explain how the dynamic relationship between text and community enabled ancient Christian and Jewish communities to define themselves. To this end, scholars composed two sets of essays. The first examines how communities understood and defined themselves, and the second looks at how sacred texts informed communities about their own self-understanding and identity in earliest stages of Christianity and late Second Temple Judaism. Whether revealing new understandings of Jesus before Pilate, the rituals governing the execution and burial of criminals, or the problems of dating ancient manuscripts, The World of Jesus and the Early Church draws the reader into the world of the early Christian and Jewish communities in fresh and insightful ways.

The Urban World and the First Christians

Author : Steve Walton,Paul Trebilco,David W. J. Gill
Publisher : Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing
Page : 404 pages
File Size : 50,9 Mb
Release : 2017-09-18
Category : Religion
ISBN : 9781467449038

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The Urban World and the First Christians by Steve Walton,Paul Trebilco,David W. J. Gill Pdf

In the tradition of The First Urban Christians by Wayne Meeks, this book explores the relationship between the earliest Christians and the city environment. Experts in classics, early Christianity, and human geography analyze the growth, development, and self-understanding of the early Christian movement in urban settings. The book's contributors first look at how the urban physical, cultural, and social environments of the ancient Mediterranean basin affected the ways in which early Christianity progressed. They then turn to how the earliest Christians thought and theologized in their engagement with cities. With a rich variety of expertise and scholarship, The Urban World and the First Christians is an important contribution to the understanding of early Christianity.

Early Christians Adapting to the Roman Empire

Author : Niko Huttunen
Publisher : BRILL
Page : 292 pages
File Size : 47,9 Mb
Release : 2020-03-31
Category : Religion
ISBN : 9789004428249

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Early Christians Adapting to the Roman Empire by Niko Huttunen Pdf

In Early Christians Adapting to the Roman Empire: Mutual Recognition Niko Huttunen challenges the interpretation of early Christian texts as anti-imperial documents. He presents examples of the positive relationship between early Christians and the Roman society. With the concept of “recognition” Huttunen describes a situation in which the parties can come to terms with each other without full agreement. Huttunen provides examples of non-Christian philosophers recognizing early Christians. He claims that recognition was a response to Christians who presented themselves as philosophers. Huttunen reads Romans 13 as a part of the ancient tradition of the law of the stronger. His pioneering study on early Christian soldiers uncovers the practical dimension of recognizing the empire.

Early Christ Groups and Greco-Roman Associations

Author : Richard S. Ascough
Publisher : Wipf and Stock Publishers
Page : 418 pages
File Size : 51,7 Mb
Release : 2022-06-20
Category : Religion
ISBN : 9781666709018

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Early Christ Groups and Greco-Roman Associations by Richard S. Ascough Pdf

Over the past two and a half decades there has been an increasing interest in how the data from the associations—known primarily from inscriptions and papyri—can help scholars better understand the development of Christ groups in the first and second centuries. Richard Ascough’s work has been at the forefront of promoting the associations and applying insights from inscriptions and papyri to understanding early Christian texts. This book collects together his most important contributions to the scholarly trajectory as it developed over a two-decade period. A fresh introduction orients the sixteen previously published articles and essays, which are arranged into three sections; the first dealing with associations as a model for Christ groups, the second focused on how associations and Christ groups interacted over recruitment, and the third on two key elements of group life: meals and memorializing the dead.

Drawing and Transcending Boundaries in the New Testament and Early Christianity

Author : Jacobus Kok,Martin Webber,Jemo van Nes
Publisher : LIT Verlag Münster
Page : 182 pages
File Size : 54,8 Mb
Release : 2020-03-10
Category : Church history
ISBN : 9783643911155

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Drawing and Transcending Boundaries in the New Testament and Early Christianity by Jacobus Kok,Martin Webber,Jemo van Nes Pdf

The construction of early Christian identity was a dynamic process in which social boundaries were drawn but also transcended. The source documents of Christianity bear witness to the process and dynamics involved in the construction of insiders and outsiders - determining who is to be included and who excluded. In the super-diverse and super-mobile time in which we live, identity boundaries are often drawn. This volume explores not only New Testament and Early Christian texts to investigate these dynamics, but also how contemporary ideology can shape the reading of scripture to exclude or include others.

Christian History

Author : Alister E. McGrath
Publisher : John Wiley & Sons
Page : 406 pages
File Size : 49,5 Mb
Release : 2013-03-04
Category : Religion
ISBN : 9781118337806

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Christian History by Alister E. McGrath Pdf

A major new introduction to the global history of Christianity, written by one of the world’s leading theologians and author of numerous bestselling textbooks. Provides a truly global review by exploring the development of Christianity and related issues in Asia, Latin America and Africa, and not just focusing on Western concerns Spanning more than two millennia and combining elements of theology, history, and culture, it traces the development of all three branches of Christianity – Catholic, Protestant, and Orthodox – providing context to Christianity’s origins and its links to Judaism Looks beyond denominational history at Christianity’s impact on individuals, society, politics, and intellectual thought, as well as on art, architecture, and the natural sciences Combines McGrath’s acute historical sensibility with formidable organizational skill, breaking the material down into accessible, self-contained historical periods Offers an accessible and student-oriented text, assuming little or no advance theological or historical knowledge on the part of the reader

Christians and Their Many Identities in Late Antiquity, North Africa, 200–450 CE

Author : Éric Rebillard
Publisher : Cornell University Press
Page : 144 pages
File Size : 40,7 Mb
Release : 2012-12-11
Category : History
ISBN : 9780801465994

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Christians and Their Many Identities in Late Antiquity, North Africa, 200–450 CE by Éric Rebillard Pdf

For too long, the study of religious life in Late Antiquity has relied on the premise that Jews, pagans, and Christians were largely discrete groups divided by clear markers of belief, ritual, and social practice. More recently, however, a growing body of scholarship is revealing the degree to which identities in the late Roman world were fluid, blurred by ethnic, social, and gender differences. Christianness, for example, was only one of a plurality of identities available to Christians in this period. In Christians and Their Many Identities in Late Antiquity, North Africa, 200-450 CE, Éric Rebillard explores how Christians in North Africa between the age of Tertullian and the age of Augustine were selective in identifying as Christian, giving salience to their religious identity only intermittently. By shifting the focus from groups to individuals, Rebillard more broadly questions the existence of bounded, stable, and homogeneous groups based on Christianness. In emphasizing that the intermittency of Christianness is structurally consistent in the everyday life of Christians from the end of the second to the middle of the fifth century, this book opens a whole range of new questions for the understanding of a crucial period in the history of Christianity.

Christians in Caesar’s Household

Author : Michael Flexsenhar III
Publisher : Penn State Press
Page : 209 pages
File Size : 48,7 Mb
Release : 2020-02-28
Category : Religion
ISBN : 9780271084091

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Christians in Caesar’s Household by Michael Flexsenhar III Pdf

In this volume, Michael Flexsenhar III advances the argument that imperial slaves and freedpersons in the Roman Empire were essential to early Christians’ self-conception as a distinct people in the Mediterranean and played a multifaceted role in the making of early Christianity. Scholarship in early Christianity has for centuries viewed Roman emperors’ slaves and freedmen as responsible for ushering Christianity onto the world stage, traditionally using Paul’s allusion to “the saints from Caesar’s household” in Philippians 4:22 as a core literary lens. Merging textual and material evidence with diaspora and memory studies, Flexsenhar expands on this narrative to explore new and more nuanced representations of this group, showing how the long-accepted stories of Christian slaves and freepersons in Caesar’s household should not be taken at face value but should instead be understood within the context of Christian myth- and meaning-making. Flexsenhar analyzes textual and material evidence from the first to the sixth century, spanning Roman Asia, the Aegean rim, Gaul, and the coast of North Africa as well as the imperial capital itself. As a result, this book shows how stories of the emperor’s slaves were integral to key developments in the spread of Christianity, generating origin myths in Rome and establishing a shared history and geography there, differentiating and negotiating assimilation with other groups, and expressing commemorative language, ritual acts, and a material culture. With its thoughtful critical readings of literary and material sources and its fresh analysis of the lived experiences of imperial slaves and freedpersons, Christians in Caesar’s Household is indispensable reading for scholars of early Christianity, the origins of religion, and the Roman Empire.

The Nature of Christian Doctrine

Author : Alister E. McGrath
Publisher : Oxford University Press
Page : 225 pages
File Size : 54,6 Mb
Release : 2024-02-01
Category : Religion
ISBN : 9780198901464

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The Nature of Christian Doctrine by Alister E. McGrath Pdf

A groundbreaking account of the origins, development, and enduring significance of Christian doctrine, explaining why it remains essential to the life of Christian communities. Noting important parallels between the development of scientific theories and Christian doctrine, Alister E. McGrath examines the growing view of early Christianity as a 'theological laboratory'. We can think of doctrinal formulations as proposals submitted for testing across the Christian world, rather than as static accounts of orthodoxy. This approach fits the available evidence much better than theories of suppressed early orthodoxies and reinforces the importance of debate within the churches as a vital means of testing doctrinal formulations. McGrath offers a robust critique of George Lindbeck's still-influential Nature of Doctrine (1984), raising significant concerns about its reductionist approach. He instead provides a more reliable account of the myriad functions of doctrine, utilising Mary Midgley's concept of 'mapping' as a means of coordinating the multiple aspects of complex phenomena. McGrath's approach also employs Karl Popper's 'Three Worlds', allowing the theoretical, objective, and subjective aspects of doctrine to be seen as essential and interconnected. We see how Christian doctrine offers ontological disclosure about the nature of reality, while at the same time providing a coordinating framework which ensures that its various aspects are seen as parts of a greater whole. Doctrine provides a framework, or standpoint, that allows theological reality to be seen and experienced in a new manner; it safeguards and articulates the core vision of reality that is essential for the proper functioning and future flourishing of Christian communities.

Studies on the Text of the New Testament and Early Christianity

Author : Daniel Gurtner,Juan Hernández, Jr.,Paul Foster
Publisher : BRILL
Page : 732 pages
File Size : 52,9 Mb
Release : 2015-09-29
Category : Religion
ISBN : 9789004300026

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Studies on the Text of the New Testament and Early Christianity by Daniel Gurtner,Juan Hernández, Jr.,Paul Foster Pdf

A collection of essays in honour of Prof. Michael Holmes. The volume is arranged in two parts focusing on textual criticism and the Apostolic Fathers respectively.

The Oxford Handbook of Pauline Studies

Author : Matthew V. Novenson,Senior Lecturer in New Testament and Christian Origins Matthew V Novenson,R. Barry Matlock,Senior Lecturer at the Department of Philosophy and Religion R Barry Matlock
Publisher : Oxford University Press
Page : 785 pages
File Size : 53,7 Mb
Release : 2022-04-08
Category : Bible
ISBN : 9780199600489

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The Oxford Handbook of Pauline Studies by Matthew V. Novenson,Senior Lecturer in New Testament and Christian Origins Matthew V Novenson,R. Barry Matlock,Senior Lecturer at the Department of Philosophy and Religion R Barry Matlock Pdf

This handbook is currently in development, with individual articles publishing online in advance of print publication. At this time, we cannot add information about unpublished articles in this handbook, however the table of contents will continue to grow as additional articles pass through the review process and are added to the site. Please note that the online publication date for this handbook is the date that the first article in the title was published online.