Download or read book Gender and Purity in the Protevangelium of James written by Lily C. Vuong and published by Mohr Siebeck. This book was released on 2013-11-19 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Protevangelium of James is arguably the earliest surviving source that exhibits profound interest in Mary, the mother of Jesus. Although frequently cited for later Christian reflections about Mary, gender, and virginity and its influence on popular Christian art, music, and literature, it is not well known outside academic circles and is rarely studied for its own sake. Lily C. Vuong offers a sustained analysis of the text's narrative and literary features in order to explore the portrayal and characterization of Mary through a focus on the theme of purity. By tracing the various ways purity is described and presented in the text, the author contributes to discussions on early Jewish and Christian ideas about purity, representations of women in the ancient world, the early history of Mariology, and the place of non-canonical writings in the history of biblical interpretation.

Download or read book The Protevangelium of James written by Lily C. Vuong and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2019-06-25 with total page 140 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Protevangelium of James tells stories about the life of the Virgin Mary that are absent from the New Testament Gospels: her miraculous birth to Anna and Joachim, her upbringing in the temple, and her marriage at the age of twelve to the aged widower Joseph. The text also adds significant details to the well-known stories of Jesus’ conception, birth, and escape from the slaughter of innocents perpetrated by Herod the Great. Despite its noncanonical status, the Protevangelium of James was extremely influential in churches of the East, and since its publication in the West in the sixteenth-century has captured the imagination of readers all over the world. This study edition presents a fresh, new translation of the text with cross-references, notes, and commentary. The extensive introduction makes accessible the most recent scholarship in studies on Mary in Christian apocrypha, offers new insights into the text’s provenance and relationship to Judaism, and discusses the text’s contributions to art and literature.

Download or read book The Protevangelium of James written by Lily C. Vuong and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2019-06-25 with total page 138 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Protevangelium of James tells stories about the life of the Virgin Mary that are absent from the New Testament Gospels: her miraculous birth to Anna and Joachim, her upbringing in the temple, and her marriage at the age of twelve to the aged widower Joseph. The text also adds significant details to the well-known stories of Jesus' conception, birth, and escape from the slaughter of innocents perpetrated by Herod the Great. Despite its noncanonical status, the Protevangelium of James was extremely influential in churches of the East, and since its publication in the West in the sixteenth-century has captured the imagination of readers all over the world. This study edition presents a fresh, new translation of the text with cross-references, notes, and commentary. The extensive introduction makes accessible the most recent scholarship in studies on Mary in Christian apocrypha, offers new insights into the text's provenance and relationship to Judaism, and discusses the text's contributions to art and literature.

Download or read book The Oxford Handbook of New Testament Gender and Sexuality written by Benjamin H. Dunning and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2019-10-10 with total page 640 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Over several decades, scholarship in New Testament and early Christianity has drawn attention both to the ways in which ancient Mediterranean conceptions of embodiment, sexual difference, and desire were fundamentally different from modern ones and also to important lines of genealogical connection between the past and the present. The result is that the study of "gender" and "sexuality" in early Christianity has become an increasingly complex undertaking. This is a complexity produced not only by the intricacies of conflicting historical data, but also by historicizing approaches that query the very terms of analysis whereby we inquire into these questions in the first place. Yet at the same time, recent work on these topics has produced a rich and nuanced body of scholarly literature that has contributed substantially to our understanding of early Christian history and also proved relevant to ongoing theological and social debates. The Oxford Handbook of Gender and Sexuality in the New Testament provides a roadmap to this lively scholarly landscape, introducing both students and other scholars to the relevant problems, debates, and issues. Leading scholars in the field offer original contributions by way of synthesis, critical interrogation, and proposals for future questions, hypotheses, and research trajectories.

Download or read book Purity and Worldview in the Epistle of James written by Darian Lockett and published by A&C Black. This book was released on 2008-03-20 with total page 241 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Arguing against restricting the meaning of purity language to the individual moral sphere (as many commentaries do), the central argument of Purity and Worldview in the Epistle of James is that purity language both articulates and constructs the worldview in James's epistle. Lockett offers a taxonomy of purity language, applied as a heuristic guide to understand the function of purity and pollution in the epistle. Through this analysis the study concludes that James is not calling for sectarian separation, but rather demonstrates a degree of cultural accommodation while calling forth specific socio-cultural boundaries between the readers and the world.

Download or read book Soul Body and Gender in Late Antiquity written by Stanimir Panayotov and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2023-12-05 with total page 474 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Including both traditional and underrepresented accounts and geographies of soul, body, gender, and sexuality in late antique history, philosophy, and theology, this volume offers substantial re-readings of these and related concepts through theories of dis/embodiment. Bringing together gender studies, late antique philosophy, patristics, history of asceticism, and history of Indian philosophy, this interdisciplinary volume examines the notions of dis/embodiment and im/materiality in late antique and early Christian culture and thought. The book’s geographical scope extends beyond the ancient Mediterranean, providing comparative perspectives from Late Antiquity in the Near East and South Asia. It offers critical interpretations of late antique scholarly objects of inquiry, exploring close readings of soul, body, gender, and sexuality in their historical context. These fascinating studies engage scholars from different fields and research traditions with one another, and reveal both change and continuity in the perception and social role of gender, sexuality, body, and soul in this period. Soul, Body, and Gender in Late Antiquity is a valuable resource for students and scholars of Classics, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, as well as those working on late antique and early Christian history, philosophy, and theology.

Download or read book Constructions of Gender in Religious Traditions of Late Antiquity written by Shayna Sheinfeld and published by Lexington Books. This book was released on 2024-03-26 with total page 405 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume examines questions concerning the construction of gender and identity in the earliest days of what is now Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Methodologically explicit, the contributions analyze textual and material sources related to these religious traditions in their cultural contexts. The sources examined are predominantly products of patriarchal elite discourses requiring innovative approaches to unveil aspects of gender otherwise hidden. This volume extends the discussion represented in the volume Gender and Second-Temple Judaism (2020) and highlights the fruitfulness of interdisciplinary research beyond anachronistic discipline distinctions.

Download or read book Connecting Gospels written by Francis Watson and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2018-04-04 with total page 263 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: By the late second century, early Christian gospels had been divided into two groups by a canonical boundary that assigned normative status to four of them while consigning their competitors to the margins. Connecting Gospels: Beyond the Canonical/Non-canonical Divide finds new ways to reconnect these divided texts. Starting from the assumption that, in spite of their differences, all early gospels express a common belief in the absolute significance of Jesus and his earthly career, this authoritative collection makes their interconnectedness fruitful for interpretation. The contributors have each selected a theme or topic and trace it across two or more gospels on either side of the canonical boundary, and the resulting convergences and divergences shed light not least on the canonical texts themselves as they are read from new and unfamiliar vantage points. This volume demonstrates that early gospel literature can be regarded as a single field of study, in contrast to the overwhelming predominance of the canonical four characteristic of traditional gospels scholarship.

Download or read book Mary and Early Christian Women written by Ally Kateusz and published by Springer. This book was released on 2019-02-18 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is open access under a CC BY-NC-ND license. This book reveals exciting early Christian evidence that Mary was remembered as a powerful role model for women leaders—women apostles, baptizers, and presiders at the ritual meal. Early Christian art portrays Mary and other women clergy serving as deacon, presbyter/priest, and bishop. In addition, the two oldest surviving artifacts to depict people at an altar table inside a real church depict women and men in a gender-parallel liturgy inside two of the most important churches in Christendom—Old Saint Peter’s Basilica in Rome and the second Hagia Sophia in Constantinople. Dr. Kateusz’s research brings to light centuries of censorship, both ancient and modern, and debunks the modern imagination that from the beginning only men were apostles and clergy.

Download or read book The Church and Her Scriptures written by Catherine Brown Tkacz and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2022-03-22 with total page 266 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the nearly two millennia since the resurrection of Jesus, can coherence be found within the ways Christians of different ethnicities have approached the Bible? How does one seek guidance in understanding the Scriptures and then draw on that experience to understand oneself and the world? In The Church and Her Scriptures the ancient diversity of Greek, Latin, and Syriac speaks through, for instance, Gregory of Nyssa, Augustine of Hippo, and Jacob of Serugh. The witness and voices of women as recorded in the Book of Daniel and the Gospels themselves are examined. Reanimated through ancient sources, the daily prayer life and holy death of Macrina the Younger, philosopher of God, attest the contemplative power of the laity. The Psalms, so interwoven in her life, prove to be vitalizing for Christians. Their example inspired new psalms in the Epistles. Typology recurred, fed by Jesus’s teaching, and this mode of exegesis and key examples of it are likewise respected in this volume. Limning the framework for all this is Patrick Hartin’s magisterial essay on Dei Verbum, the Vatican II document on the Bible.

Download or read book The Oxford Handbook of Early Christian Apocrypha written by Andrew F. Gregory and published by . This book was released on 2015 with total page 497 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Oxford Handbook of Early Christian Apocrypha addresses issues and themes that arise in the study of early Christian apocryphal literature. It discusses key texts including the Gospel of Thomas, the Gospel of Mary, the Gospel of Peter, letters attributed to Paul, Peter, and Jesus, and acts and apocalypses written about or attributed to different apostles. Part One consists of authoritative surveys of the main branches of apocryphal literature (gospels, acts, epistles, apocalypses, and related literature) and Part Two considers key issues that they raise. These include their contribution to our understanding of developing theological understandings of Jesus, the apostles and other important figures such as Mary. It also addresses the value of these texts as potential sources for knowledge of the historical Jesus, and for debates about Jewish-Christian relations, the practice of Christian worship, and developing understandings of asceticism, gender and sexuality, etc. The volume also considers questions such as which ancient readers read early Christian apocrypha, their place in Christian spirituality, and their place in contemporary popular culture and contemporary theological discourse.

Download or read book Early New Testament Apocrypha written by Zondervan, and published by Zondervan Academic. This book was released on 2022-10-18 with total page 561 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Broaden the scope of your New Testament studies with this introduction to early Christian apocryphal literature. To understand the New Testament well, it is important to study the larger world surrounding it, and one of the primary avenues for this exploration is through reading related ancient texts. But this task is daunting for scholars and novices alike given the sheer size of the ancient literary corpora. The Ancient Literature for New Testament Studies series aims to bridge this gap by introducing the key ancient texts that form the cultural, historical, and literary context for the study of the New Testament. Early New Testament Apocrypha offers an entry point into the corpus of early Christian apocryphal literature through twenty-eight texts or groups of texts. While the majority of the texts fall within the first four centuries CE, and therefore are useful for uncovering the earliest interpretations assigned to the New Testament, select later texts serve as reminders of how the meanings of New Testament texts continued to develop in subsequent centuries. Each essay covers introductory matters, a summary of content, interpretive issues, key passages for New Testament studies and their significance, and a select bibliography. Whether you are a scholar looking to familiarize yourself with a new corpus of texts or a novice seeking to undertake a serious contextualized study of the New Testament, this is an ideal reference work for you. Essays and contributors include: Part 1: Apocryphal Gospels Agrapha, Andrew Gregory Fragments of Gospels on Papyrus, Tobias Nicklas Gospel of Barnabas, Philip Jenkins Gospel of Peter, Paul Foster Infancy Gospel of Thomas, Reidar Aasgaard Jewish-Christian Gospels, Petri Luomanen Legend of Aphroditian, Katharina Heyden Pilate Cycle, J. K. Elliott Protevangelium of James, Eric M. Vanden Eykel Toledot Yeshu, Sarit Kattan Gribetz Revelation of the Magi, Catherine Playoust Part 2: Apocryphal Acts Acts of Andrew, Nathan C. Johnson Acts of John, Harold W. Attridge Acts of Paul, Harold W. Attridge Acts of Peter, Robert F. Stoops, Jr. Acts of Philip, Christopher R. Matthews Acts of Thomas, Harold W. Attridge Departure of My Lady Mary from This World (Six Books Dormition Apocryphon), J. Christopher Edwards Pseudo-Clementines, F. Stanley Jones Part 3: Apocryphal Epistles Jesus's Letter to Abgar, William Adler Correspondence of Paul and Seneca, Andrew Gregory Epistle to the Laodiceans, Philip L. Tite Epistula Apostolorum, Florence Gantenbein The Sunday Letter, Jon C. Laansma Part 4: Apocryphal Apocalypses Apocalypse of Paul, Jan N. Bremmer Apocalypse of Peter (Greek), Dan Batovici Apocalypse of Thomas, Mary Julia Jett 1 Apocryphal Apocalypse of John, Robyn J. Whitaker New Testament Apocrypha: Introduction and Critique of a Modern Category, Dale B. Martin SERIES DESCRIPTION: Ancient Literature for New Testament Studies is a 10-volume series that introduces key ancient texts that form the cultural, historical, and literary context for the study of the New Testament. Each volume features introductory essays to the corpus, followed by articles on the relevant texts. Each article will address introductory matters, provenance, summary of content, interpretive issues, key passages for New Testament studies and their significance, and a select bibliography. Neither too technical to be used by students nor too thin on interpretive information to be useful for serious study of the New Testament, this series provides a much-needed resource for understanding the New Testament in its Jewish, Greco-Roman, and early Christian contexts. Produced by an international team of leading experts in each corpus, Ancient Literature for New Testament Studies stands to become the standard resource for both scholars and students.

Download or read book Survival and Success of an Apocryphal Childhood of Jesus written by Marijana Vukovic and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2022-04-19 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores the transformations of the Infancy Gospel of Thomas in the Middle Ages. It also connects the different representations of children, childhood, everyday- and family life in the distinct textual versions to the ancient and medieval settings in which they appear. The text survived and influenced ideas and mentalities that shaped medieval minds in the East and the West, but also enhanced anti-Jewish sentiments.

Download or read book Children in Early Christian Narratives written by Sharon Betsworth and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2015-04-23 with total page 225 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sharon Betsworth examines the narratives, parables, and teachings of and about children in the gospels and the literature of Early Christianity. Betsworth begins with a discussion of the social-historical context of children and childhood in the first century before discussing the role of children in all four gospels. She shows that for Mark and Matthew, children are integral to understanding each evangelist's perspective on the reign of God and on Jesus' identity in each Gospel. In the Gospel of Luke the childhood of Jesus is shown to be crucial to the broader themes of the Gospel. In the Gospel of John, Betsworth examines the metaphorical use of the word 'children' looking at 'children of light' and of 'darkness'. She then explores stories of Jesus' childhood in the non-canonical Infancy Gospels of James and Thomas, as well as the childhood of his mother, Mary in the latter shedding light upon views of children, discipleship, and the person of Jesus in early christianity and in the ancient world more generally.

Download or read book The Bible Gender and Sexuality Critical Readings written by Lynn R. Huber and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2020-10-01 with total page 717 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume collects both classic and cutting-edge readings related to gender, sex, sexuality, and the Bible. Engaging the Hebrew Bible, New Testament, and surrounding texts and worlds, Rhiannon Graybill and Lynn R. Huber have amassed a selection of essays that reflects a wide range of perspectives and approaches towards gender and sexuality. Presented in three distinct parts, the collection begins with an examination of gender in and around biblical contexts, before moving to discussing sex and sexualities, and finally critiques of gender and sexuality. Each reading is introduced by the editors in order to situate it in its broader scholarly context, and each section culminates in an annotated list of further readings to point researchers towards other engagements with these key themes.

Download or read book Desiring Martyrs written by Harry O. Maier and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2020-12-16 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Martyrs create space and time through the actions they take, the fate they suffer, the stories they prompt, the cultural narratives against which they take place and the retelling of their tales in different places and contexts. The title "Desiring Martyrs" is meant in two senses. First, it refers to protagonists and antagonists of the martyrdom narratives who as literary characters seek martyrs and the way they inscribe certain kinds of cultural and social desire. Second, it describes the later celebration of martyrs via narrative, martyrdom acts, monuments, inscriptions, martyria, liturgical commemoration, pilgrimage, etc. Here there is a cultural desire to tell or remember a particular kind of story about the past that serves particular communal interests and goals. By applying the spatial turn to these ancient texts the volume seeks to advance a still nascent social geographical understanding of emergent Christian and Jewish martyrdom. It explores how martyr narratives engage pre-existing time-space configurations to result in new appropriations of earlier traditions.

Download or read book Virgin Whore written by Emma Maggie Solberg and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2018-12-15 with total page 201 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Virgin Whore, Emma Maggie Solberg uncovers a surprisingly prevalent theme in late English medieval literature and culture: the celebration of the Virgin Mary’s sexuality. Although history is narrated as a progressive loss of innocence, the Madonna has grown purer with each passing century. Looking to a period before the idea of her purity and virginity had ossified, Solberg uncovers depictions and interpretations of Mary, discernible in jokes and insults, icons and rituals, prayers and revelations, allegories and typologies—and in late medieval vernacular biblical drama. More unmistakable than any cultural artifact from late medieval England, these biblical plays do not exclusively interpret Mary and her virginity as fragile. In a collection of plays known as the N-Town manuscript, Mary is represented not only as virgin and mother but as virgin and promiscuous adulteress, dallying with the Trinity, the archangel Gabriel, and mortals in kaleidoscopic erotic combinations. Mary’s "virginity" signifies invulnerability rather than fragility, redemption rather than renunciation, and merciful license rather than ascetic discipline. Taking the ancient slander that Mary conceived Jesus in sin as cause for joyful laughter, the N-Town plays make a virtue of those accusations: through bawdy yet divine comedy, she redeems and exalts the crime. By revealing the presence of this promiscuous Virgin in early English drama and late medieval literature and culture—in dirty jokes told by Boccaccio and Chaucer, Malory’s Arthurian romances, and the double entendres of the allegorical Mystic Hunt of the Unicorn—Solberg provides a new understanding of Marian traditions.