Download or read book Christians as a Religious Minority in a Multicultural City written by Jürgen Zangenberg and published by A&C Black. This book was released on 2004-12-10 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Imperial Rome truly was one of the most "multicultural" cities in antiquity. Syrians, Africans, Gauls, Egyptians, Jews and other groups flocked into the city and formed their communities—as well as Christians. The essays here examine questions such as: How did these ethnic and religious minority groups maintain and develop their identity? How did the "cultural majority" react towards these sometimes exotic groups? The first section gives a general survey about living conditions in early Christian Rome and how Christians, Jews and Egyptians related to their urban context. The second part focuses on the interaction between majorities and minorities in the early Christian community of Rome on the basis of New Testament texts and traditions. The third and final part follows the development of the post-New Testament Christian community into the second and third centuries.
Download or read book Roman Christianity and Roman Stoicism written by Runar Thorsteinsson and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2010-05-27 with total page 263 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Runar M. Thorsteinsson presents a challenge to the view that Christianity introduced an entirely new, better, and decidedly universal morality into the ancient world. Presenting evidence from Stoic and Christian texts from first century Rome, he emphasizes the similarities between the two belief systems.
Download or read book Sacred Ritual Profane Space written by Jenn Cianca and published by McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP. This book was released on 2018-05-23 with total page 249 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first three centuries of Christianity are increasingly seen in modern scholarship as sites of complexity. Sacred Ritual, Profane Space examines the Christian meeting places of the time and overturns long-held notions about the earliest Christians as utopian rather than place-bound people. By mapping what is known from early Christian texts onto the archaeological data for Roman domestic spaces, Jenn Cianca provides a new lens for examining the relationship between early Christianity and sites of worship. She proposes that not only were Roman homes sacred sites in their own right but they were also considered sacred by the Christian communities that used them. In many cases, meeting space would have included the presence of the Roman domestic cult shrines. Despite the fact that the domestic cult was polytheistic, Cianca asserts that its practices likely continued in places used for worship by Christians. She also argues that continued practice of the domestic cult in Roman domestic spaces did not preclude Christians from using houses as churches or from understanding their rituals or their meeting places as sacred. Raising a host of questions about identity, ritual affiliation, and domestic practice, Sacred Ritual, Profane Space demonstrates how sacred space was constructed through ritual enactment in early Christian communities.
Download or read book Orthodoxy and Heresy in Early Christian Contexts written by Paul A. Hartog and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2015-01-30 with total page 281 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Eighty years ago, Walter Bauer promulgated a bold and provocative thesis about early Christianity. He argued that many forms of Christianity started the race, but one competitor pushed aside the others, until this powerful "orthodox" version won the day. The victors re-wrote history, marginalizing all other perspectives and silencing their voices, even though the alternatives possessed equal right to the title of normative Christianity. Bauer's influence still casts a long shadow on early Christian scholarship. Were heretical movements the original forms of Christianity? Did the heretics outnumber the orthodox? Did orthodox heresiologists accurately portray their opponents? And more fundamentally, how can one make any objective distinction between "heresy" and "orthodoxy"? Is such labeling merely the product of socially situated power? Did numerous, valid forms of Christianity exist without any validating norms of Christianity? This collection of essays, each written by a relevant authority, tackles such questions with scholarly acumen and careful attention to historical, cultural-geographical, and socio-rhetorical detail. Although recognizing the importance of Bauer's critical insights, innovative methodologies, and fruitful suggestions, the contributors expose numerous claims of the Bauer thesis (in both original and recent manifestations) that fall short of the historical evidence. With contributions from: Rodney Decker Carl Smith William Varner Rex Butler Bryan Litfin Brian Shelton David Alexander Edward Smither Glen Thompson
Download or read book At the Temple Gates written by Heidi Wendt and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2016-08-18 with total page 373 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In his sixth satire, Juvenal speculates about how Roman wives busy themselves while their husbands are away, namely, by entertaining a revolving door of exotic visitors who include a eunuch of the eastern goddess Bellona, an impersonator of Egyptian Anubis, a Judean priestess, and Chaldean astrologers. From these self-proclaimed religious specialists women solicit services ranging from dream interpretation to the coercion of lovers. Juvenal's catalogue suggests the popularity of such "freelance" experts at the turn of the second century and their familiarity to his audience, whom he could expect to get the joke. Heidi Wendt investigates the backdrop of this enthusiasm for the religion of freelance experts by examining their rise during the first two centuries of the Roman Empire. Unlike civic priests and temple personnel, freelance experts had to generate their own authority and legitimacy, often through demonstrations of skill and learning in the streets, in marketplaces, and at the temple gates, among other locations in the Roman world. Wendt argues that these professionals participated in a highly competitive form of religious activity that intersected with multiple areas of specialty, particularly philosophy and medicine. Over the course of the imperial period freelance experts grew increasingly influential, more diverse with respect to their skills and methods, and more assorted in the ethnic coding of their practices. Wendt argues that this context engendered many of the innovative forms of religion that flourished in the second and third centuries, including phenomena linked with Persian Mithras, the Egyptian gods, and the Judean Christ. The evidence for freelance experts in religion is abundant, but scholars of ancient Mediterranean religion have only recently begun to appreciate their impact on the empire's changing religious landscape. At the Temple Gates integrates studies of Judaism, Christianity, mystery cults, astrology, magic, and philosophy to paint a colorful portrait of religious expertise in early Rome.
Download or read book Indian and Christian written by Cornelis Bennema and published by SAIACS Press & Oxford House Research. This book was released on 2011-11-09 with total page 331 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Indian and Christian: Changing Identities in Modern India is a collection of essays from the 1st SAIACS Consultation that took place during November 2010 at SAIACS, Bangalore. ‘Who am I?’ is a question that every human needs to ask themselves. In this book, this question is looked at from a dual perspective—Indian and Christian. Can one be both ‘Indian’ and ‘Christian’ in the modern world? Should one have a single identity or can one have multiple identities? The book attempts to address these issues with clarity and conviction through sixteen articles covering areas of Biblical Studies, Theology & Philosophy, Religion & Culture, and Pastoral Theology & Psychology.
Download or read book Urban Religion written by Jörg Rüpke and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2020-02-24 with total page 249 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: So far religion has been seen as cause for dramatic developments in the history of cities, it has contributed to the monumentalisation of centres and or has given importance to ex-centric places. Very recently, anthropologists have been discovering religion in the contemporary global city. But still awaiting historical investigation is the specific urban character of religious ideas, practices and institutions and the role of urban space shaping this very ‘religion’ in the course of history. The time-span from the Hellenistic age to Late Antiquity was crucial in the establishment of concepts and institutions of ‘religion’ and witnessed extended waves of urbanisation, Rome being central to this. In addressing this problem, this book fills a significant gap in the scholarship on urban religion across time. Taking seriously the proposition that space is condition, medium and outcome of social relations, the development of ‘urban religion’ in lived urban space and urban culture or urbanity offers a lens onto processes of religious change that have been neglected for the history of religion and for the study of urbanism. The key thesis is that city-space engineered the major changes that revolutionised religions. »This stimulating book makes use of archaeology and history to address religion as an essential component of urban life in both the past and the present. -With a strong basis in the ancient Mediterranean as well as an insightful view of modern urban life, Rüpke emphasizes that the practice and performance of religion at the everyday level is as essential in the creation of an urban ethos as the grand temples and institutions promulgated by the elite.« Monica L. Smith, author of Cities: The First 6,000 Years »Jörg Rüpke offers a characteristically original and learned series of reflections on some of the many ways in which the history of religions and the history of cities might be entangled. Urban Religion offers no single overarching thesis, but it is consistently thought-provoking and suggests many intriguing lines of investigation for the future.« Greg Woolf, Institute of Classical Studies, London
Download or read book Khrist Bhakta Movement A Model for an Indian Church written by Ciril J. Kuttiyanikkal and published by LIT Verlag Münster. This book was released on 2014 with total page 376 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this PhD research, the author has inquired the contribution of the Khrist Bhakta movement to inculturation in the field of community building in India. He focuses on Matridham asram at Varanasi where rural Hinduism and the charismatic form of Catholic Christianity meet one another. The author addresses the issues involved in this encounter from a social, cultural, legal, pastoral and theological perspective, which is relevant for all those interested in interreligious and intercultural encounter. --Book Jacket.
Download or read book A Companion to Second Century Christian Heretics written by Antti Marjanen and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2005-07-01 with total page 399 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The book illuminates “the other side” of early Christianity by examining thinkers and movements that were embraced by many second-century religious seekers as legitimate forms of Christianity, but which are now largely forgotten, or are known only from the characteristics attributed to them in the writings of their main adversaries. The collection deals with the following teachers and movements: Basilides, Sethianism, Valentinus’ school, Marcion, Tatian, Bardaisan, Montanists, Cerinthus, Ebionites, Nazarenes, Jewish-Christianity of the Pseudo-Clementines, and Elchasites. Where appropriate, the authors have included an overview of the life and significant publications of the “heretics,” along with a description of their theologies and movements. Therefore, this volume can serve as a handbook of the second-century “heretics” and their “heresies.” Since all the chapters have been written by specialists who wrestle daily with their research themes, the contributions also offer new perspectives and insights stimulating further discussion on this fascinating—but often neglected—side of early Christianity.
Download or read book Beginning from Jerusalem written by James D.G. Dunn and published by Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing. This book was released on 2009-03-16 with total page 1364 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Christianity in the making, James D.G. Dunn examines in depth the major factors that shaped first-generation Christianity and beyond, exploring the parting of the ways between Christianity and Judaism, the Hellenization of Christianity, and responses to Gnosticism. He mines all the first- and second-century sources, including the New Testament Gospels, New Testament apocrypha, and such church fathers as Ignatius, Justin Martyr, and Irenaeus, showing how the Jesus tradition and the figures of James, Paul, Peter, and John were still esteemed influences but were also the subject of intense controversy as the early church wrestled with its evolving identity.
Download or read book Christ s Resurrection in Early Christianity written by Markus Vinzent and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-05-23 with total page 347 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why is the Resurrection of Christ so remote, almost non-existent in many early Christian writings of the first 140 years of Christianity? This is the first Patristic book to focus on the development of the belief in the Resurrection of Christ through the first centuries A.D. By Paul, Christ's Resurrection is regarded as the basis of Christian hope. In the fourth century it becomes a central Christian tenet. But what about the discrepancy in the first three centuries? This thought provoking book explores this core topic in Christian culture and theology. Taking a broad approach - including iconography, archaeology, history, philosophy, Jewish Studies and theology - Markus Vinzent offers innovative reading of well known biblical and other texts complemented by rarely discussed evidence. Christ's Resurrection in Early Christianity takes the reader on a fascinating journey through the wilderness of unorthodox perspectives in the breadth of early Christian writings. It is an eye-opening experience with insights into the craftsmanship of early Christianity - and the earliest existential debates about life and death, death and life - all centred on the cross, on suffering, enduring and sacrifice.
Download or read book One in Christ Jesus written by David Lertis Matson and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2014-11-11 with total page 308 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This Festschrift dedicated to S. Scott Bartchy comes on the occasion of his retirement from the Department of History at the University of California at Los Angeles. This volume contains seventeen essays contributed by Professor Bartchy's esteemed colleagues, associates, friends, and former graduate students. Beginning with his groundbreaking work on Greco-Roman slavery, Bartchy's teaching and research have been marked both by his use of social-scientific methods for studying the New Testament and by an interest in the social history of early Christianity, including the role of women in the early Christian assemblies, the Christian critique of traditional views of male honor, and the practice of table fellowship and its implications for Christian social relations. To honor Bartchy's legacy, the editors thought it appropriate to organize this collection according to the relational categories suggested by Galatians 3:28. Each essay pertains, therefore, to the social dynamics between Jews and Gentiles, slaves and freeborn, or males and females in the early church and beyond. The volume's subtitle reflects Scott's many accomplishments as a jazz musician and sounds a note of unity in diversity that characterizes the diverse perspectives and themes found in the essays of this volume.
Download or read book Receptions of Paul in Early Christianity written by Jens Schröter and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2018-10-22 with total page 920 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The volume deals with interpretations of Paul, his person and his letters, in various early Christian writings. Some of those, written in the name of Paul, became part of the New Testament, others are included among „Ancient Christian Apocrypha", still others belong to the collection called „The Apostolic Fathers". Impacts of Paul are also discernible in early collections of his letters which became an important part of the New Testament canon. This process, resulting in the „canonical Paul", is also considered in this collection.
Download or read book Holy Terror Jesus in the Infancy Gospel of Thomas written by J.R.C. Cousland and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2017-11-16 with total page 163 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Infancy Gospel of Thomas (or Paidika) is one of the most unusual gospels in the Christian tradition. Instead of revealing the compassionate Jesus so familiar to us from the biblical Gospels, it confronts its readers with a very different Jesus – a child who sometimes acts like a holy terror, killing and harming others for trifling faults. So why is Jesus portrayed as acting in such an 'unchristian' fashion? To address this question, Cousland focuses on three interconnected representations of Jesus in the Paidika: Jesus as holy terror, as child, and as miracle-working saviour. Cousland endeavours to show that, despite the differing character of these three roles, they present a unified picture. Jesus' unusual behaviour arises from his 'growing pains' as a developing child, who is at the same time both human and divine. Cousland's volume is the first detailed examination of the Christology of the Infancy Gospel of Thomas and provides a fresh and engaging approach to a topic not often discussed in representations of Jesus.
Download or read book Explaining Christian Origins and Early Judaism written by Petri Luomanen and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2007 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The contributors of the volume draw on cognitive and social science, suggesting fresh ways of approaching Christian origins and early Judaism. Its multidisciplinary and radically new perspective to its subject matter is highly relevant for all scholars of religion.
Download or read book Early Christian Encounters with Town and Countryside written by Markus Tiwald and published by Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. This book was released on 2021-04-12 with total page 417 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ever since Jesus walked the hills of Galilee and Paul travelled the roads of Asia Minor and Greece, Christianity has shown a remarkable ability to adapt itself to various social and cultural environments. Recent research has demonstrated that these environments can only be very insufficiently termed as "rural" or "urban". Neither was Jesus' Galilee only rural, nor Paul's Asia only "urban". On the background of ongoing research on the diversity of social environments in the Early Empire, this volume will focus on various early Christian "worlds" as witnessed in canonical and non-canonical texts. How did Early Christians experience and react to "rural" and "urban" life? What were the mechanisms behind this adaptability? Papers will analyze the relation between urban Christian beginnings and the role of the rural Jesus-tradition. In what sense did the image of Jesus, the "Galilean village Jew", change when his message was carried into the cities of the Mediterranean world from Jerusalem to Athens or Rome? Papers will not only deal with various personalities or literary works whose various attitudes towards urban life became formative for future Christianity. They will also explore the different local milieus that demonstrate the wide range of Christian cultural perspectives.
Download or read book Infirmity in Antiquity and the Middle Ages written by Christian Krötzl and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-03-09 with total page 340 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume discusses infirmitas (’infirmity’ or ’weakness’) in ancient and medieval societies. It concentrates on the cultural, social and domestic aspects of physical and mental illness, impairment and health, and also examines frailty as a more abstract, cultural construct. It seeks to widen our understanding of how physical and mental well-being and weakness were understood and constructed in the longue durée from antiquity to the Middle Ages. The chapters are written by experts from a variety of disciplines, including archaeology, art history and philology, and pay particular attention to the differences of experience due to gender, age and social status. The book opens with chapters on the more theoretical aspects of pre-modern infirmity and disability, moving on to discuss different types of mental and cultural infirmities, including those with positive connotations, such as medieval stigmata. The last section of the book discusses infirmity in everyday life from the perspective of healing, medicine and care.
