Download or read book The Social Structure of the Early Christian Communities written by Dimitris Kyrtatas and published by Verso Books. This book was released on 2020-05-05 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Social Structure of the Early Christian Communities deals with a small number of topics which, in one way or another, have long attracted the attention of students of early Christianity. Above all, it is an attempt to investigate the social origins and the social positions of the early Christians. Recent studies are arriving at the conclusion, contrary to long-held views, that the primitive Christian communities, those which emerge after the first chapters of Acts, did not consist of the 'dregs of the populace'. However, in spite of the important work which is being done on the subject, few of the recent books concerned with such sociological issues go far beyond the New Testament age. What still requires investigation is the composition of the early communities from the first years of the mission to the Gentiles down to the age of Constantine, when large sections of the population, from all social classes, started joining the Christian churches.
Download or read book Kingdom and Community written by John G. Gager and published by Prentice Hall. This book was released on 1975 with total page 184 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The volumes in this series are intended to contribute to the development of the study of religion. It seems to us that it is especially important that appropriately conceived and well-written materials be available for use in undergraduate and graduate instruction. Moreover, it is our hope that this series will not only be a useful teaching instrument within the formal curriculum, but will also play an important role in shaping the study of religion. Individual Volumes fall into one of three subsections in the series. One set of studies, small in number, will be concerned with theories of religion or methodological approaches to the study of religion. Our attempts will be to offer books were none are available or where the existing materials are inadequate. A second group of books, also small, will deal with general aspects of religion in various traditions. Mysticism, symbol and myth, religious ethics, and other comparable topics deserve theoretical and systematic treatments not available at present, The third section of the series consists of the particular studies of various religious traditions, periods or movements. The editors will try to identify areas of study to which sufficient attention has not been given, as well as classical subjects which deserve or even require fresh approaches. We hope that each of the volumes in the series will be sufficiently lucid to serve as an introductory study, while also providing insights that will contribute to the work of specialists. Scholarly apparatus and bibliographies will be included to provide direction for further study. Throughout the project the editors will seek out studies which manifest unquestioned quality in scholarship and writing." -Editors
Download or read book The First Christians in Their Social Worlds written by Philip F. Esler and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2002-11-01 with total page 184 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: First published in 1994. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.
Download or read book Christian Community in History Volume 1 written by Roger Haight and published by A&C Black. This book was released on 2004-09-16 with total page 449 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Drawing upon the methodology developed in his Dynamics of Theology (1990) and exemplified in Jesus Symbol of God (1999), Roger Haight, in this magisterial work, achieves what he calls an historical ecclesiology, or ecclesiology from below. In contrast to traditional ecclesiology from above, which is abstract, idealist, and ahistorical, ecclesiology from below is concrete, realist, and historically conscious. In this first of two volumes, Haight charts the history of the church's self-understandings from the origins of the church in the Jesus movement to the late Middle Ages. In volume 2 Haight develops a comparative ecclesiology based on the history and diverse theologies of the worldwide Christian movement from the Reformation to the present. While the ultimate focus of the work falls on the structure of the church and its theological self-understanding, it tries to be faithful to the historical, social, and political reality of the church in each period.
Download or read book Constructing Early Christian Families written by Halvor Moxnes and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2002-06-01 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The family is a topical issue for studies of the Ancient world. Family, household and kinship have different connotations in antiquity from their modern ones. This volume expands that discussion to investigate the early Christian family structures within the larger Graeco-Roman context. Particular emphasis is given to how family metaphors, such as 'brotherhood' function to describe relations in early Christian communities. Asceticism and the rejection of sexuality are considered in the context of Christian constructions of the family. Moxnes' volume presents a comprehensive and timely addition to the study of familial and social structures in the Early Christian world, which will certainly stimulate further debate.
Download or read book Social Aspects of Early Christianity written by Abraham J. Malherbe and published by Augsburg Fortress Publishing. This book was released on 1983 with total page 152 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Social Origins of Christianity written by Shirley Jackson Case and published by . This book was released on 1923 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Early Christian World written by Philip F. Esler and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2002-09-11 with total page 1369 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Early Christian World presents an exhaustive, erudite and lavishly illustrated treatment of how the small movement which formed around Jesus in Galilee became the pre-eminent religion of the ancient world. The work begins by firmly situating early Christianity within its Mediterranean social, political and religious contexts, before charting the history of the first Christian centuries. The creation and perpetuation of Christian communities through various means, including mission and monasticism, is explored, as is the everyday experience of early Christians, through discussion of gender and sexuality, religious practice, communication and social structures. The intellectual (particularly theological) and artistic heritage of the period is fully considered, and a vivid picture painted of the internal and external challenges faced by early Christianity. The book concludes with profiles of the most notable figures of the age. Comprehensive and accessible, Early Christian World provides up-to-date coverage of the most important topics in the study of early Christianity, together with an invaluable collection of visual material. It will be an indispensable resource for anyone studying this period
Download or read book The Social Structure of the First Crusade written by Conor Kostick and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2008 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The First Crusade (1096-1099) was an extraordinary undertaking, the repercussions of which have reached down to the present day. This book re-examines the sources to provide a detailed analysis of the various social classes that participated in the expedition, and the tensions between them.
Download or read book Handbook of Early Christianity written by Anthony J. Blasi and published by Rowman Altamira. This book was released on 2002 with total page 844 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Visit our website for sample chapters!
Download or read book Christianity and Society written by Everett Ferguson and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 1999 with total page 422 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: First published in 1999. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.
Download or read book In the World but Not of the World written by A. Sue Russell and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2019-11-20 with total page 255 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: There has been much discussion of two dimensions of the kingdom of God in scholarship: the temporal (already/not yet) and the embodied (spirit/flesh). Russell proposes that there is a third parallel dimension, a social dimension. Using Victor Turner's concepts of structure, antistructure, and liminality, Russell explores how these concepts are consistently expressed in Jesus' teaching, in Paul's writing, and through the writers of the second and third centuries. She demonstrates how, from the very beginning of the Jesus movement, Christ followers were unique, not because their members were to live liminal lives apart from structure, but because they lived out new antistructural relationships within existing structures and thus transformed them. They lived liminally within their structure.
Download or read book Utopianism A Very Short Introduction written by Lyman Tower Sargent and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2010-09-23 with total page 160 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: There are many debates about utopia - What constitutes a utopia? Are utopias benign or dangerous? Is the idea of utopianism essential to Christianity or heretical? What is the relationship between utopia and ideology? This Very Short Introduction explores these issues and examines utopianism and its history. Lyman Sargent discusses the role of utopianism in literature, and in the development of colonies and in immigration. The idea of utopia has become commonplace in social and political thought, both negatively and positively. Some thinkers see a trajectory from utopia to totalitarianism with violence an inevitable part of the mix. Others see utopia directly connected to freedom and as a necessary element in the fight against totalitarianism. In Christianity utopia is labelled as both heretical and as a fundamental part of Christian belief, and such debates are also central to such fields as architecture, town and city planning, and sociology among many others Sargent introduces and summarizes the debates over the utopia in literature, communal studies, social and political theory, and theology. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.
Download or read book Destroyer of the Gods written by Larry W. Hurtado and published by . This book was released on 2016 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Silly," "stupid," "irrational," "simple." "Wicked," "hateful," "obstinate," "anti-social." "Extravagant," "perverse." The Roman world rendered harsh judgments upon early Christianity--including branding Christianity "new." Novelty was no Roman religious virtue. Nevertheless, as Larry W. Hurtado shows in Destroyer of the gods, Christianity thrived despite its new and distinctive features and opposition to them. Unlike nearly all other religious groups, Christianity utterly rejected the traditional gods of the Roman world. Christianity also offered a new and different kind of religious identity, one not based on ethnicity. Christianity was distinctively a "bookish" religion, with the production, copying, distribution, and reading of texts as central to its faith, even preferring a distinctive book-form, the codex. Christianity insisted that its adherents behave differently: unlike the simple ritual observances characteristic of the pagan religious environment, embracing Christian faith meant a behavioral transformation, with particular and novel ethical demands for men. Unquestionably, to the Roman world, Christianity was both new and different, and, to a good many, it threatened social and religious conventions of the day. In the rejection of the gods and in the centrality of texts, early Christianity obviously reflected commitments inherited from its Jewish origins. But these particular features were no longer identified with Jewish ethnicity and early Christianity quickly became aggressively trans-ethnic--a novel kind of religious movement. Its ethical teaching, too, bore some resemblance to the philosophers of the day, yet in contrast with these great teachers and their small circles of dedicated students, early Christianity laid its hard demands upon all adherents from the moment of conversion, producing a novel social project. Christianity's novelty was no badge of honor. Called atheists and suspected of political subversion, Christians earned Roman disdain and suspicion in equal amounts. Yet, as Destroyer of the gods demonstrates, in an irony of history the very features of early Christianity that rendered it distinctive and objectionable in Roman eyes have now become so commonplace in Western culture as to go unnoticed. Christianity helped destroy one world and create another.
Download or read book Text and Interpretation written by Patrick J. Hartin and published by BRILL. This book was released on 1991 with total page 348 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Text and Interpretation" offers a concise insight into the many new approaches adopted in more recent New Testament interpretation. Written mainly by South African New Testament scholars, this work provides a guide to the theory and the practice of these new approaches and renders them more readily accessible.
Download or read book Mystery and Secrecy in the Nag Hammadi Collection and Other Ancient Literature Ideas and Practices written by Christian H. Bull and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2011-10-28 with total page 561 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Drawing on a wide array of sources, this anthology sets out to analyze the concepts of mystery and secrecy that occur in the ritual and rhetoric of antique Mediterranean religion, with an emphasis on Gnosticism, Christianity, and Paganism.
Download or read book Christ s Associations written by John S. Kloppenborg and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2019-11-26 with total page 532 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A groundbreaking investigation of early Christ groups in the ancient Mediterranean As an urban movement, the early groups of Christ followers came into contact with the many small groups in Greek and Roman antiquity. Organized around the workplace, a deity, a diasporic identity, or a neighborhood, these associations gathered in small face-to-face meetings and provided the principal context for cultic and social interactions for their members. Unlike most other groups, however, about which we have data on their rules of membership, financial management, and organizational hierarchy, we have very little information about early Christ groups. Drawing on data about associative practices throughout the ancient world, this innovative study offers new insight into the structure and mission of the early Christ groups. John S. Kloppenborg situates the Christ associations within the broader historical context of the ancient Mediterranean and reveals that they were probably smaller than previously believed and did not have a uniform system of governance, and that the attraction of Christ groups was based more on practice than theological belief.
