Hellenic religion and Christianization, c. 370-529 /
:
This work discusses the decline of Greek religion and the christianization of town and countryside in the eastern Roman Empire between the death of Julian the Apostate and the laws of Justinian the Great against paganism, c. 370-529. It examines such questions as the effect of the laws against sacrifice and sorcery, temple conversions, the degradation of pagan gods into daimones , the christianization of rite, and the social, political and economic background of conversion to Christianity. Several local contexts are examined in great detail: Gaza, Athens, Alexandria, Aphrodisias, central Asia Minor, northern Syria, the Nile basin, and the province of Arabia. It lays particular emphasis on the criticism of epigraphy, legal evidence, and hagiographic texts, and traces the demographic growth of Christianity and the chronology of this process in select local contexts. It also seeks to understand the behavioral patterns of conversion.
:
1 online resource (xv, 430 pages) :
Includes bibliographical references (p. 387-402) and index. :
9789004276789 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Christians shaping identity from the Roman Empire to Byzantium : studies inspired by Pauline Allen /
:
The essays collected in Christians Shaping Identity celebrate Pauline Allen's significant contribution to early Christian, late antique, and Byzantine studies, especially concerning bishops, heresy/orthodoxy and christology. Covering the period from earliest Christianity to middle Byzantium, the first eighteen essays explore the varied ways in which Christians constructed their own identity and that of the society around them. A final four essays explore the same theme within Roman Catholicism and oriental Christianity in the late 19th to 21st centuries, with particular attention to the subtle relationships between the shaping of the early Christian past and the moulding of Christian identity today. Among the many leading scholars represented are Averil Cameron and Elizabeth A. Clark.
:
1 online resource (xv, 520 pages) :
"Publications by Pauline Allen"--Pages 13-21.
Includes bibliographical references and indexes. :
9789004301573 :
0920-623X ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
From Judaism to Christianity : tradition and transition : a festschrift for Thomas H. Tobin, S.J., on the occasion of his sixty-fifth birthday /
:
As a far reaching tribute to the distinguished career of Thomas H. Tobin, S.J., a team of outstanding biblical scholars has joined to offer essays on the religious milieu of the ancient Mediterranean region. Challenged by Hellenistic and Greco-Roman cultural and political domination, the religious struggles of Jewish and, later, Christian communities sought to maintain tradition as well as mitigate transition. Jewish responses to a Hellenistic world are revealed anew in the Dead Sea Scrolls and the works of Artapanus and Philo. Also, Christian views on the transitory world of the early centuries of the Common Era are brought to light in the New Testament literature, apocryphal texts, and Patristic writings. Professors and students alike will benefit from the depth and breadth of this fresh scholarship.
:
Includes a biographical note on Thomas H. Tobin and a bibliography of his works (p. [xvii]-xxxii). :
1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references (p. [289]-311) and indexes. :
9789004214859 :
0167-9732 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Christian origins and Greco-Roman culture : social and literary contexts for the New Testament /
:
In Christian Origins and Greco-Roman Culture , Stanley Porter and Andrew Pitts assemble an international team of scholars whose work has focused on reconstructing the social matrix for earliest Christianity through the use of Greco-Roman materials and literary forms. Each essay moves forward the current understanding of how primitive Christianity situated itself in relation to evolving Hellenistic culture. Some essays focus on configuring the social context for the origins of the Jesus movement and beyond, while others assess the literary relation between early Christian and Greco-Roman texts.
:
1 online resource (vii, 751 pages) :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004236219 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Christian origins and Hellenistic Judaism : social and literary contexts for the New Testament /
:
In Christian Origins and Hellenistic Judaism , Stanley E. Porter and Andrew W. Pitts assemble an international team of scholars whose work has focused on reconstructing the social matrix for earliest Christianity through reference to Hellenistic Judaism and its literary forms. Each essay moves forward the current understanding of how primitive Christianity situated itself in relation to evolving Greco-Roman Jewish culture. Some essays focus on configuring the social context for the origins of the Jesus movement and beyond, while others assess the literary relation between early Christian and Hellenistic Jewish texts.
:
1 online resource ([xi], , 619 pages) :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004236394 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Jews and Christians in the first and second centuries : how to write their history /
:
The papers in this volume are organized around the ambition to reboot the writing of history about Jews and Christians in the first two centuries CE. Many are convinced of the need for a new perspective on this crucial period that saw both the birth of rabbinic Judaism and apostolic Christianity and their parting of ways. Yet the traditional paradigm of Judaism and Christianity as being two totally different systems of life and thought still predominates in thought, handbooks, and programs of research and teaching. As a result, the sources are still being read as reflecting two separate histories, one Jewish and the other Christian. The contributors to the present work were invited to attempt to approach the ancient Jewish and Christian sources as belonging to one single history, precisely in order to get a better view of the process that separated both communities. In doing so, it is necessary to pay constant attention to the common factor affecting both communities: the Roman Empire. Roman history and Roman archaeology should provide the basis on which to study and write the shared history of Jews and Christians and the process of their separation. A basic intuition is that the series of wars between Jews and Romans between 66 and 135 CE - a phenomenon unrivalled in antiquity - must have played a major role in this process. Thus the papers are arranged around three focal points: (1) the varieties of Jewish and Christian expression in late Second Temple times, (2) the socio-economic, military, and ideological processes during the period of the revolts, and (3) the post-revolt Jewish and Christian identities that emerged. As such, the volume is part of a larger project that is to result in a source book and a history of Jews and Christians in the first and second centuries.
:
1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004278479 :
1877-4970 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Hellenic religion and Christianization. c. 370-529 /
:
This work discusses the decline of Greek religion and the christianization of town and countryside in the eastern Roman Empire between the death of Julian the Apostate and the laws of Justinian the Great against paganism, c. 370-529. It examines such questions as the effect of the laws against sacrifice and sorcery, temple conversions, the degradation of pagan gods into daimones , the christianization of rite, and the social, political and economic background of conversion to Christianity. Several local contexts are examined in great detail: Gaza, Athens, Alexandria, Aphrodisias, central Asia Minor, northern Syria, the Nile basin, and the province of Arabia. It lays particular emphasis on the criticism of epigraphy, legal evidence, and hagiographic texts, and traces the demographic growth of Christianity and the chronology of this process in select local contexts. It also seeks to understand the behavioral patterns of conversion.
:
1 online resource (xvi, 344 pages) :
Includes bibliographical references and indexes. :
9789004276772 :
0927-7633 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Christian Origins and the Establishment of the Early Jesus Movement.
:
Christian Origins and the Establishment of the Early Jesus Movement explores the events, people, and writings surrounding the founding of the early Jesus movement in the mid to late first century. The essays are divided into four parts, focused upon the movement's formation, the production of its early Gospels, description of the Jesus movement itself, and the Jewish mission and its literature. This collection of essays includes chapters by a global cast of scholars from a variety of methodological and critical viewpoints, and continues the important Early Christianity in its Hellenistic Context series.
:
1 online resource. :
9789004372740
Apostasie im antiken Christentum : Studien zum Glaubensabfall in altkirchlicher Theologie, Disziplin und Pastoral (4.-7. Jahrhundert n. Chr.) /
:
In diesem Band untersucht Christian Hornung den Glaubensabfall im spätantiken Christentum. Im Anschluss an eine umfangreiche Hinführung, in der die Apostasie in der nichtchristlichen Umwelt behandelt wird, nähert er sich dem Thema unter drei Perspektiven: Theologie, Disziplin und Pastoral. Analysiert werden theologische Erklärungsmodelle des Phänomens bei kirchlichen Autoren, seine disziplinäre Einordnung im spätantiken (Kirchen-)Recht sowie der konkrete Umgang mit Apostaten in städtischen Gemeinden. Im Gegensatz zur bisherigen altertumswissenschaftlichen Forschung kann Hornung aufzeigen, dass die Apostasie bis weit in nachkonstantinische Zeit eine grundlegende Anfrage an das sich etablierende Christentum bleibt. Die Anlage der Arbeit erlaubt zudem neue Einblicke in das Verhältnis von altkirchlichem Recht und Pastoral. In this volume, Christian Hornung examines the abandonment of faith in the Christianity of Late Antiquity. After an extensive introduction dealing with apostasy in the non-Christian world he approaches the subject from three perspectives: theology, church discipline and pastoral care. Hornung analyses the theological explanatory models of different ecclesiastical writers concerning apostasy, early (Canon) Law and concrete examples of apostates in urban parishes. In contrast with prior classical and patristic scholarship, he points out that apostasy remains a fundamental problem for Christianity in the time after Constantine the Great. Furthermore, the special composition of Hornung's work delivers new insights into the relationship between early Canon Law and pastoral care.
:
1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004324152 :
0920-623X ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Violence in ancient Christianity : victims and perpetrators /
:
Ancient Christianity had an ambivalent stance toward violence. Jesus had instructed his disciples to love their enemies, and in the first centuries Christians were proud of this lofty teaching and tried to apply it to their persecutors and to competing religious groups. Yet at the same time they testify to their virulent verbal criticism of Jews, heretics and pagans, who could not accept the Christian exclusiveness. After emperor Constantine had turned to Christianity, Christians acquired the opportunity to use violence toward competing groups and pagans, even though they were instructed to love them personally and Jewish-Christian relationships flourished at grass root level. General analyses and case studies demonstrate that the fashionable distinction between intolerant monotheism and tolerant polytheism must be qualified.
:
1 online resource (viii, 252 pages) :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004274907 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
From temple to church : destruction and renewal of local cultic topography in late antiquity /
:
Destruction of temples and their transformation into churches are central symbols of late antique change in religious environment, socio-political system, and public perception. Contemporaries were aware of these events' far-reaching symbolic significance and of their immediate impact as demonstrations of political power and religious conviction. Joined in any "temple-destruction" are the meaning of the monument, actions taken, and subsequent literary discourse. Paradigms of perception, specific interests, and forms of expression of quite various protagonists clashed. Archaeologists, historians, and historians of religion illuminate "temple-destruction" from different perspectives, analysing local configurations within larger contexts, both regional and imperial, in order to find an appropriate larger perspective on this phenomenon within the late antique movement "from temple to church".
:
1 online resource (xi, 378 pages) : illustrations. :
Includes bibliographical references and indexes. :
9789047443735 :
0927-7633 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Cyril of Jerusalem : bishop and city /
:
This volume deals with the episcopate of Cyril of Jerusalem (350 to 387). Its overall theme is the relationship between the city and its bishop and, in particular, Cyril's efforts to promote Jerusalem as the Christian city par excellence , by employing Jerusalem's religious symbols - the holy sites and the Cross. Apart from chapters on Jerusalem in the fourth century C.E. and on the life and works of Cyril, this study discusses important aspects and events of Cyril's episcopacy, such as his pastoral work as an urban bishop of the Jerusalem Christian community, Jerusalem's liturgy, the rebuilding of the Temple, giving a re-interpretation of the Syriac letter ascribed to Cyril about this event, and Jerusalem's and Palestine's religious landscape.
:
1 online resource (xv, 214 pages) : illustrations. :
Includes bibliographical references (p. 195-207) and index. :
9789047405924 :
0920-623X ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Corinth, the first city of Greece : an urban history of late antique cult and religion /
:
This book addresses cult and religion in the city of Corinth from the 4th to 7th centuries of our era. The work incorporates and synthesizes all available evidence, literary, archaeological and other. The interaction and conflict between Christian and non-Christian activity is placed into its urban context and seen as simultaneously existing and overlapping cultural activity. Late antique religion is defined as cult-based rather than doctrinally-based, and thus this volume focuses not on what people believed, but rather what they did. An emphasis on cult activity reveals a variety of types of interaction between groups, ranging from confrontational events at dilapidated polytheist cult sites, to full polysemous and shared cult activity at the so-called \'Fountain of the Lamps\'. Non-Christian traditions are shown to have been recognized and viable through the sixth century. The tentative conclusion is drawn that a clear definition of \'pagan\' and \'Christian\' begins at an urban level with the Christian re-monumentalization of Corinth with basilicas. The disappearance of \'pagan\' cult is best attributed to the development of a new city socially and physically based in Christianity, rather than any purely \'religious\' development.
:
1 online resource (x, 173 pages) : illustrations, maps. :
Includes bibliographical references (p. 156-170) and index. :
9789004301498 :
0927-7633 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
James the Just and Christian origins /
:
The lack of serious and sustained investigation of the historical figure of James \'the Just\', brother of Jesus, is one of the curious oversights in modern critical study of Christian origins. James the Just and Christian Origins addresses this problem. The questions that surround this exceedingly important, yet largely ignored figure are several and complicated. Was he really the brother of Jesus? How influential was he in the early church? What was the nature of his relationship to the other apostles, especially to Paul? How did James understand Christianity's relationship to Judaism and to the people of Israel? Out of this grows a very important question: In its generative moment, was Christianity in fact as well as in its self-awareness, a species of Judaism? Contributors from several countries are currently engaged in collaborative study in James and early Jewish Christianity. James the Just and Christian Origins is the first of several planned volumes to be published.
:
1 online resource (x, 299 pages) :
Includes bibliographical references and indexes. :
9789004267480 :
0167-9732 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Explaining Christian origins and early Judaism : contributions from cognitive and social science /
:
Cognitive science of religion is a radically new paradigm in the study of religion. Apart from psychology and anthropology of religion, also historians of religion have shown increasing interest in this approach. This volume is groundbreaking in combining cognitive analysis with historical and social-scientific approaches to biblical materials, Christian origins, and early Judaism. The book is in four parts: an introduction to cognitive and social-scientific approaches, applications of cognitive science, applications of conceptual blending theory, and applications of socio-cognitive analyses. The book will be of interest for historians of religion, biblical scholars, and those working in the cognitive science of religion.
:
Proceedings of a symposium held Aug.-Sept. 2005 at the Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies. :
1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and indexes. :
9789047431961 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.