Download or read book The Oral Ethos of the Early Church written by Joanna Dewey and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2013-10-30 with total page 245 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: To experience the gospel message as first-century people heard it is to move into an oral world, one with very little reliance on manuscripts. The essays in this book explore this oral world and the Gospel of Mark within it. They demonstrate the oral style of Mark's gospel, which suggests that it was composed orally, transmitted orally in its entirety by literate and nonliterate storytellers, and survived to become part of the canon only because it was widely known orally. Women's storytelling also thrived during the first centuries of Christianity. With the transition to manuscript authority beginning in the middle of the second century, women's voices were often minimized, trivialized, or completely omitted in written versions. Further, when the Gospel of Mark was one of four written Gospels these voices were quickly ignored. An ancient audience hearing Mark performed, however, enjoyed a vibrant experience of the gospel message and its urgent call to follow.

Download or read book The Media Matrix of Early Jewish and Christian Narrative written by Nicholas Elder and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2019-11-14 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Generically, theologically, and concerning content, Mark and Joseph and Aseneth are quite different. The former is a product of the nascent Jesus movement and influenced by the Greco-Roman Bioi (“Lives”). It details the life, ministry, death, and resurrection of a wandering Galilean. The latter is a Hellenistic Jewish narrative influenced by Greek romances and Jewish novellas. It expands the laconic account of Joseph's marriage to Aseneth in Genesis 41 into a full-fledged love and adventure story. Despite these differences, Elder finds remarkable similarities that the texts share. Elder uses both texts to examine media and modes of composition in antiquity, arguing that they were both composed via dictation from their antecedent oral traditions. Elder's volume offers a fresh approach to the composition of both Joseph and Aseneth and Mark as well as to many of their respective interpretive debates.

Download or read book Life and Practice in the Early Church written by Steve McKinion and published by NYU Press. This book was released on 2001-08 with total page 199 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A collection of primary texts revealing how early Christians practiced their faith Life and Practice in the Early Church brings together a range of primary texts from the church's first five centuries to demonstrate how early Christians practiced their faith. Rather than focusing on theology, these original documents shed light on how early believers "did church," addressing such practical questions as, how did the church administer baptism? How were sermons delivered? How did the early church carry out its missions endeavors? Early Christian writings reveal a great deal about the tradition, as well as the wider culture in which it developed. Far from being monolithic, the documents which present the voices of the early church fathers in their own words demonstrate variation and diversity regarding how faith was worked out during the patristic period. The texts illuminate who was eligible for baptism, what was expected of worshippers, how the Eucharist was celebrated, and how church offices and their functions were organized. Contextual introductions explain practices and their development for those with little prior knowledge of Christian history or tradition. The pieces included here, all in accessible English translation, represent such sources as Justin Martyr, Tertullian, the Cappadocians, Cyril of Jerusalem, John Chrysostom, and Augustine.

Download or read book Empowering the People written by Richard A. Horsley and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2022-03-25 with total page 536 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this innovative study, Horsley builds on his earlier works concerning the problematic and misleading categories of “magic” and “miracle” to examine in-depth the meaning and importance of the narratives of healing and exorcism in the Gospels. Incorporating his work on oral performance and turning to important works in medical anthropology, a new image emerges of how these narratives help us re-evaluate Jesus’s place in first-century Galilee and Judea. In his exorcisms and healings, Jesus-in-interaction was empowering the villagers in their struggles for renewal of personal and communal dignity in resistance to invasive Roman rule.

Download or read book Performing Early Christian Literature written by Kelly Iverson and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2021-10-07 with total page 241 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Scholars of early Christian literature acknowledge that oral traditions lie behind the New Testament gospels. While the concept of orality is widely accepted, it has not resulted in a corresponding effort to understand the reception of the gospels within their oral milieu. In this book, Kelly Iverson reconsiders the experiential context in which early Christian literature was received and interpreted. He argues that reading and performance are distinguishable media events, and, significantly, that they produce distinctive interpretive experiences for readers and audiences alike. Iverson marshals an array of methodological perspectives demonstrating how performance generates a unique experiential context that shapes and informs the interpretive process. Iverson's study explores the dynamic oral environment in which ancient audiences experienced the gospel stories. He shows why an understanding of oral performance has important implications for the study of the NT, as well as for several issues that are largely unquestioned by biblical scholars.

Download or read book A History of the Quests for the Historical Jesus Volume 2 written by Colin Brown and published by Zondervan Academic. This book was released on 2022-11-08 with total page 753 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A comprehensive, two-volume reassessment of the quests for the historical Jesus that details their origins and underlying presuppositions as well as their ongoing influence on today's biblical and theological scholarship. Jesus' life and teaching is important to every question we ask about what we believe and why we believe it. And yet there has never been common agreement about his identity, intentions, or teachings—even among first-century historians and scholars. Throughout history, different religious and philosophical traditions have attempted to claim Jesus and paint him in the cultural narratives of their heritage, creating a labyrinth of conflicting ideas. From the evolution of orthodoxy and quests before Albert Schweitzer's famous "Old Quest," to today's ongoing questions about criteria, methods, and sources, A History of the Quests for the Historical Jesus not only chronicles the developments but lays the groundwork for the way forward. The late Colin Brown brings his scholarly prowess in both theology and biblical studies to bear on the subject, assessing not only the historical and exegetical nuts and bolts of the debate about Jesus of Nazareth but also its philosophical, sociological, and theological underpinnings. Instead of seeking a bedrock of "facts," Brown stresses the role of hermeneutics in formulating questions and seeking answers. Colin Brown was almost finished with the manuscript at the time of his passing in 2019. Brought to its final form by Craig A. Evans, this book promises to become the definitive history and assessment of the quests for the historical Jesus. Volume One (sold separately) covers the period from the beginnings of Christianity to the end of World War II. Volume Two covers the period from the post-War era through contemporary debates.

Download or read book Oral Scribal Dimensions of Scripture Piety and Practice written by Werner H. Kelber and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2016-09-30 with total page 356 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In April 2008 a conference was convened at Rice University that brought together experts in the three monotheistic religions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. The papers discussed at the conference are presented here, revised and updated. The thirteen contributions comprise the keynote address by John Miles Foley; three essays on Judaism and the Hebrew Bible; three on the New Testament; three on the Qur'an; and two summarizing pieces, by the Africanist Ruth Finnegan and the Islamicist William Graham respectively. The central thesis of the book states that sacred Scripture was experienced by the three faiths less as a text contained between two covers and a literary genre, and far more as an oral phenomenon. In developing the performative, recitative aspects of the three religions, the authors directly or by implication challenge their distinctly textual identities. Instead of viewing the three faiths as quintessential religions of the book, these writers argue that the religions have been and continue to be appropriated not only as written but also very much as oral authorities, with the two media interpenetrating and mutually influencing each other in myriad ways.

Download or read book Catalyzing Reader Response to the Oral Gospel written by Mwaniki Karura and published by Langham Monographs. This book was released on 2020-06-30 with total page 313 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Dr. Mwaniki Karura provides fresh insight into the Gospel of Mark, its audience, and its purpose in this in-depth study of the Markan text and its oral context. Through careful analysis of the rhetorical layers in Mark, Karura establishes the use of Old Testament quotations, miracle stories, and the passion narratives as tools to galvanize its readers’ response to the oral gospel they had already received. Dr. Karura demonstrates how Mark’s gospel exists as both a challenge and an encouragement, utilizing parables such as the sower and that of the wicked tenants, to reflect its readers’ own hearts. In condemning its audience’s lukewarm response to the gospel they had heard preached, it simultaneously seeks to inspire obedience, faith, and whole-hearted passion for that same gospel. This is an excellent resource for scholars and preachers alike, as they seek to further understand the Markan text, its first-century audience, and the context of the early church.

Download or read book The Dead Sea Scrolls in Ancient Media Culture written by and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2023-02-13 with total page 542 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is a collection of cutting-edge essays on the Dead Sea Scrolls as part of ancient Mediterranean media culture, featuring interdisciplinary feedback from scholars in New Testament studies and Classics.

Download or read book From Text to Performance written by Kelly R Iverson and published by Lutterworth Press. This book was released on 2015-04-30 with total page 216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For the last two centuries biblical interpretation has been guided by perspectives that have largely ignored the oral context in which the gospels took shape. Only recently have scholars begun to explore how ancient media inform the interpretive process and an understanding of the Bible. This collection of essays, by authors who recognize that the Jesus tradition was a story heard and performed, seeks to reevaluate the constituent elements of narrative, including characters, structure, narrator, time, and intertextuality. In dialogue with traditional literary approaches, these essays demonstrate that an appreciation of performance yields fresh insights distinguishable in many respects from results of literary or narrative readings of the gospels.

Download or read book Hearing Kyriotic Sonship written by Michael R. Whitenton and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2016-09-27 with total page 407 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Hearing Kyriotic Sonship Michael Whitenton approaches the characterization of Mark’s Jesus from an interdisciplinary perspective and argues that many first-century listeners probably understood him as a divine Davidic king.

Download or read book Jewish Education from Antiquity to the Middle Ages written by George J. Brooke and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2017-10-17 with total page 473 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Jewish Education from Antiquity to the Middle Ages there are fifteen tightly themed specialist studies that discuss individual texts, wider literary corpora, and various related themes to set a new agenda for the study of Jewish education.

Download or read book Doctrine and Practice in the Early Church written by Stuart George Hall and published by Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing. This book was released on 1992 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: There has long been a need for a succinct and up-to-date account of the major doctrines and practices of the early church. This book fulfills that need in clearly tracing the emergence of the distinctive elements of the Christian tradition.

Download or read book The Forgotten Compass written by Werner H. Kelber and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2022-09-21 with total page 313 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As form criticism arose, the French anthropologist Marcel Jousse developed a hermeneutical paradigm, global in scope and prescient in its vision but opposed to the philological paradigm of biblical studies. While the philological methodology came to define modernity’s biblical hermeneutics, Jousse’s rhythmically energized paradigm was marginalized and largely forgotten. Although Jousse has left relatively few traces in writing, many of his more than one thousand lectures, delivered at four different academic institutions in Paris between 1931 and 1957, have been edited and translated into English by Edgard Sienaert. The Forgotten Compass surveys Jousse’s views on biblical tradition and scholarship, documenting the relevance of his paradigm for current biblical studies. What distinguishes Jousse’s paradigm is that it is firmly established within the orbit of ancient communications and deeply rooted in Jewish tradition. The Forgotten Compass challenges readers to come to appreciate the print Bible’s lack of fluency in the very sensibilities privileged by Jousse’s paradigm and to raise consciousness about the multivocal, multisensory culture in which the biblical traditions emerged and from which they drew their initial nourishment.

Download or read book Tradition in the Early Church written by R.P.C. Hanson and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2009-08-01 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It will be the aim of this book to distinguish the nature and function of different sorts of tradition within the historic Christian faith. The main task which the book will set itself will be to examine as fairly and as fully as possible the likelihood of the survival of original, authentic tradition within the Christian Church outside the Bible, to see whether there are solid grounds for concluding that independently of the New Testament any considerable or significant amount of original and trustworthy information about Jesus . . . could have survived, and whether it actually has survived. --From the first chapter, Oral Tradition

Download or read book Early Christians Speak Vol 1 3rd Ed written by Everett Ferguson and published by ACU Press. This book was released on 1999-11-01 with total page 453 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: These studies in early church history cover various aspects of the church life of early Christians. They focus on the second century. What did the second century Christian leaders say about faith, baptism, infant baptism, worship services, the Lord's Supper, prayer, singing, church organization, mercy and the role of women? New Testament texts bearing on the topic are listed at the beginning of each chapter. We are talking about the same community of people, the same church, as existed in the New Testament. Such writings have an important bearing on the interpretation of the Scriptures.

Download or read book The Dictionary of the Bible and Ancient Media written by Tom Thatcher and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2017-10-19 with total page 504 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Dictionary of the Bible and Ancient Media is a convenient and authoritative reference tool, introducing specific terms and concepts helpful to the study of the Bible and related literature in ancient communications culture. Since the early 1980s, biblical scholars have begun to explore the potentials of interdisciplinary theories of oral tradition, oral performance, personal and collective memory, ancient literacy and scribality, visual culture and ritual. Over time these theories have been combined with considerations of critical and exegetical problems in the study of the Bible, the history of Israel, Christian origins, and rabbinics. The Dictionary of the Bible and Ancient Media responds to the rapid growth of the field by providing a source of reference that offers clear definitions, and in-depth discussions of relevant terms and concepts, and the relationships between them. The volume begins with an overview of 'ancient media studies' and a brief history of research to orient the reader to the field and the broader research context of the book, with individual entries on terms and topics commonly encountered in studies of the Bible in ancient media culture. Each entry defines the term/ concept under consideration, then offers more sustained discussion of the topic, paying particular attention to its relevance for the study of the Bible and related literature