Religious Competition in the Greco-Roman World

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Author :
Publisher : SBL Press
ISBN 13 : 0884141578
Total Pages : 346 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (841 download)

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Book Synopsis Religious Competition in the Greco-Roman World by : Nathaniel P. DesRosiers

Download or read book Religious Competition in the Greco-Roman World written by Nathaniel P. DesRosiers and published by SBL Press. This book was released on 2016-08-19 with total page 346 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Essays that broaden the historical scope and sharpen the parameters of competitive discourses Scholars in the fields of late antique Christianity, neoplatonism, New Testament, art history, and rabbinics examine issues related to authority, identity, and change in religious and philosophical traditions of late antiquity. The specific focus of the volume is the examination of cultural producers and their particular viewpoints and agendas in an attempt to shed new light on the religious thinkers, texts, and material remains of late antiquity. The essays explore the major creative movements of the era, examining the strategies used to develop and designate orthodoxies and orthopraxies. This collection of essays reinterprets dialogues between individuals and groups, illuminating the mutual competition and influence among these ancient thinkers and communities. Features: Essays feature competitive discourse as the central organizing theme Articles present unique theoretical models that are adaptable to different contexts and highly applicable to religious discourses before and after the Late Antique Period Scholars cover a much wider range of traditions including Judaism, Christianity, paganism, and philosophy in order to provide the most complete portrait of the religious landscape

Religious Competition in the Third Century CE: Jews, Christians, and the Greco-Roman World

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Author :
Publisher : Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht
ISBN 13 : 364755068X
Total Pages : 261 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (475 download)

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Book Synopsis Religious Competition in the Third Century CE: Jews, Christians, and the Greco-Roman World by : Jordan D. Rosenblum

Download or read book Religious Competition in the Third Century CE: Jews, Christians, and the Greco-Roman World written by Jordan D. Rosenblum and published by Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. This book was released on 2014-10-01 with total page 261 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The essays in this work examine issues related to authority, identity, or change in religious and philosophical traditions of the third century CE. This century is of particular interest because of the political and cultural developments and conflicts that occurred during this period, which in turn drastically changed the social and religious landscape of the Roman world. The specific focus of this volume edited by Jordan D. Rosenblum, Lily Vuong, and Nathaniel DesRosiers is to explore these major creative movements and to examine their strategies for developing and designating orthodoxies and orthopraxies.Contributors were encouraged to analyze or construct the intersections between parallel religious and philosophical communities of the third century, including points of contact either between or among Jews, Christians, pagans, and philosophers. As a result, the discussions of the material contained within this volume are both comparative in nature and interdisciplinary in approach, engaging participants who work in the fields of Religious Studies, Philosophy, History and Archaeology. The overall goal was to explore dialogues between individuals or groups that illuminate the mutual competition and influence that was extant among them, and to put forth a general methodological framework for the study of these ancient dialogues. These religious and philosophical dialogues are not only of great interest and import in their own right, but they also can help us to understand how later cultural and religious developments unfolded.

Religion and Competition in Antiquity

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Author :
Publisher : Latomus/Tournai
ISBN 13 : 9782870312902
Total Pages : 0 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (129 download)

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Book Synopsis Religion and Competition in Antiquity by : David Engels

Download or read book Religion and Competition in Antiquity written by David Engels and published by Latomus/Tournai. This book was released on 2014 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The notion of competition has become crucial to our understanding of Greek and Roman religion and is often invoked to explain religous changes and to describe the relationship between various cults. This volume seeks to raise our awareness of what the notion implies and to test its use for the analysis of ancient religions. The papers range from Classical Greece, Hellenistic Babylon, Rome and the Etruscans, to Late Antiquity and the rise of Islam. They seek to determine how much can be gained in each individual case by understanding religious interaction in terms of rivalry and competition. In doing so, the volume hopes to open a more explicit debate on the analytical tools with which ancient religion is currently being studied.

Gaming Greekness

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Publisher : Gorgias Press
ISBN 13 : 9781463241247
Total Pages : 374 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (412 download)

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Book Synopsis Gaming Greekness by : Allan Georgia

Download or read book Gaming Greekness written by Allan Georgia and published by Gorgias Press. This book was released on 2021-01-18 with total page 374 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "How the Jewish and Christian communities that emerged in the early Roman Empire navigated a 'Hellenistic' world is a longstanding and unsettled question. Recent scholarship on the intellectual cultures that developed among Greek speaking subjects of Rome in the so-called Second Sophistic as well as models for culture and competition informed by mathematical and economic game theories provide new ideas to address this question. This study offers a model for a kind of culture-making that accounts for how the cultural ecosystems of the Roman Empire enabled these religious communities to win legitimacy and build discourses of self-expression by competing on the same cultural fields as other Roman subjects. By considering a range of texts and figures-including Justin Martyr, Tatian, the 'second' Paul of the Acts of the Apostles, Lucian of Samosata, 4 Maccabees, and Favorinus of Arelate-this study contends that competing for legitimacy enabled those fledgling religious communities to express coherent cultural identities and secure social credibility within the complex milieu of Roman Imperial society"--

Urban Religion in Late Antiquity

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Publisher : Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN 13 : 3110641275
Total Pages : 307 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (16 download)

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Book Synopsis Urban Religion in Late Antiquity by : Asuman Lätzer-Lasar

Download or read book Urban Religion in Late Antiquity written by Asuman Lätzer-Lasar and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2020-11-23 with total page 307 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Urban Religion is an emerging research field cutting across various social science disciplines, all of them dealing with “lived religion” in contemporary and (mainly) global cities. It describes the reciprocal formation and mutual influence of religion and urbanity in both their material and ideational dimensions. However, this approach, if duly historicized, can be also fruitfully applied to antiquity. Aim of the volume is the analysis of the entanglement of religious communication and city life during an arc of time that is characterised by dramatic and even contradicting developments. Bringing together textual analyses and archaelogical case studies in a comparative perspective, the volume zooms in on the historical context of the advanced imperial and late antique Mediterranean space (2nd–8th centuries CE).

Syrian Identity in the Greco-Roman World

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Publisher : Cambridge University Press
ISBN 13 : 1107244560
Total Pages : pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (72 download)

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Book Synopsis Syrian Identity in the Greco-Roman World by : Nathanael J. Andrade

Download or read book Syrian Identity in the Greco-Roman World written by Nathanael J. Andrade and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2013-07-25 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: By engaging with recent developments in the study of empires, this book examines how inhabitants of Roman imperial Syria reinvented expressions and experiences of Greek, Roman and Syrian identification. It demonstrates how the organization of Greek communities and a peer polity network extending citizenship to ethnic Syrians generated new semiotic frameworks for the performance of Greekness and Syrianness. Within these, Syria's inhabitants reoriented and interwove idioms of diverse cultural origins, including those from the Near East, to express Greek, Roman and Syrian identifications in innovative and complex ways. While exploring a vast array of written and material sources, the book thus posits that Greekness and Syrianness were constantly shifting and transforming categories, and it critiques many assumptions that govern how scholars of antiquity often conceive of Roman imperial Greek identity, ethnicity and culture in the Roman Near East, and processes of 'hybridity' or similar concepts.

Jewish Childhood in the Roman World

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Publisher : Cambridge University Press
ISBN 13 : 1108685110
Total Pages : 924 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (86 download)

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Book Synopsis Jewish Childhood in the Roman World by : Hagith Sivan

Download or read book Jewish Childhood in the Roman World written by Hagith Sivan and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2018-05-17 with total page 924 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the first full treatment of Jewish childhood in the Roman world. It follows minors into the spaces where they lived, learned, played, slept, and died and examines the actions and interaction of children with other children, with close-kin adults, and with strangers, both inside and outside the home. A wide range of sources are used, from the rabbinic rules to the surviving painted representations of children from synagogues, and due attention is paid to broader theoretical issues and approaches. Hagith Sivan concludes with four beautifully reconstructed 'autobiographies' of specific children, from a boy living and dying in a desert cave during the Bar-Kokhba revolt to an Alexandrian girl forced to leave her home and wander through the Mediterranean in search of a respite from persecution. The book tackles the major questions of the relationship between Jewish childhood and Jewish identity which remain important to this day.

15 New Testament Words of Life

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Publisher : Zondervan Academic
ISBN 13 : 031010906X
Total Pages : 241 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (11 download)

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Book Synopsis 15 New Testament Words of Life by : Nijay K. Gupta

Download or read book 15 New Testament Words of Life written by Nijay K. Gupta and published by Zondervan Academic. This book was released on 2022-09-13 with total page 241 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 15 New Testament Words of Life, biblical scholar Nijay Gupta explores some of the most important New Testament words: Righteousness Gospel Forgiveness Life Cross Faith Grace Fellowship Hope Salvation Peace Religion Holiness Love Witness These are familiar terms in the Christian vocabulary, but many don’t know the original background and theological importance of these words, and how they can be life-giving for Christian faith and life today. To access the deep meaning of these words in the theological vocabulary of the New Testament writers, Gupta discusses each word within a key text and interprets it in three contexts: Canonical—how the New Testament is grounded in the Old Literary—the meaning developed within the key text Historical—the Jewish and Greco-Roman world of the first century For those first hearers of the gospel who chose to follow Jesus, these words were the words of life, and they can be once again for Jesus-followers in the modern world. With Gupta’s skilled guidance, readers will find their engagement with the New Testament revitalized as they begin to understand how these inspiring ancient words can still be captivating, thought-provoking, and worldview-shaping words for real life today. While the New Testament is full of depth and complexity, its most important ideas have a profound simplicity to them. In this collection of word studies, Nijay Gupta explores foundational themes in New Testament theology, but in a very accessible way. If you're looking to deepen your understanding of some of the most essential concepts in Christian belief, this book is for you! —TIM MACKIE, cofounder of the Bible Project "Not only does Nijay Gupta define important New Testament terms and illustrate their significance for today, he also models a strategy for how a Bible reader might approach the exploration of biblical ideas. 15 New Testament Words of Life is an introduction to New Testament theology that invites readers to study the Bible by investigating key concepts that frequently appear in books, sermons, and even casual conversations. Gupta’s scholarship and cultural awareness combine to make the work a necessary resource for preachers, teachers, and all other curious Bible readers. I am eager for my students to read it." —DENNIS R. EDWARDS, Associate professor of New Testament, North Park Theological Seminary "Nijay Gupta has provided the church and its pastors with a remarkable resource. Wearing his deep learning lightly, he winsomely portrays how the New Testament writers draw on the Old Testament to theologize in ways that are immensely hopeful and intensely practical. A book like this is just what the church needs today—a rich biblical theology that speaks words of life to the lives of the people of God in our increasingly fraught and complex world." —DERWIN L. GRAY, Cofounder and lead pastor of Transformation Church, author of How to Heal Our Racial Divide "Do you suspect there's more to the Christian faith than what you’re hearing? Dr. Gupta brings the best of biblical scholarship to the pews, where standard Christian ways of talking about things have grown stale. By highlighting these fifteen key words, he opens a whole new world of understanding that will reinvigorate Christian practice. If you are hungry to move beyond clichés, this book is your invitation to a nourishing feast." —CARMEN JOY IMES, Associate professor of Old Testament, Biola University, author of Bearing God’s Name

Religious Violence in the Ancient World

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Author :
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
ISBN 13 : 1108849210
Total Pages : 447 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (88 download)

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Book Synopsis Religious Violence in the Ancient World by : Jitse H. F. Dijkstra

Download or read book Religious Violence in the Ancient World written by Jitse H. F. Dijkstra and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2020-10-01 with total page 447 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Much like our world today, Late Antiquity (fourth-seventh centuries CE) is often seen as a period rife with religious violence, not least because the literary sources are full of stories of Christians attacking temples, statues and 'pagans'. However, using insights from Religious Studies, recent studies have demonstrated that the Late Antique sources disguise a much more intricate reality. The present volume builds on this recent cutting-edge scholarship on religious violence in Late Antiquity in order to come to more nuanced judgments about the nature of the violence. At the same time, the focus on Late Antiquity has taken away from the fact that the phenomenon was no less prevalent in the earlier Graeco-Roman world. This book is therefore the first to bring together scholars with expertise ranging from classical Athens to Late Antiquity to examine the phenomenon in all its complexity and diversity throughout Antiquity.

Religious Dissent in Late Antiquity, 350-450

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Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0190067268
Total Pages : 464 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (9 download)

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Book Synopsis Religious Dissent in Late Antiquity, 350-450 by : Maijastina Kahlos

Download or read book Religious Dissent in Late Antiquity, 350-450 written by Maijastina Kahlos and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2019-11-12 with total page 464 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Religious Dissent in Late Antiquity reconsiders the religious history of the late Roman Empire, focusing on the shifting position of dissenting religious groups - conventionally called 'pagans' and 'heretics'. The period from the mid-fourth century until the mid-fifth century CE witnessed a significant transformation of late Roman society and a gradual shift from the world of polytheistic religions into the Christian Empire. This book challenges the many straightforward melodramatic narratives of the Christianisation of the Roman Empire, still prevalent both in academic research and in popular non-fiction works. Religious Dissent in Late Antiquity demonstrates that the narrative is much more nuanced than the simple Christian triumph over the classical world. It looks at everyday life, economic aspects, day-to-day practices, and conflicts of interest in the relations of religious groups. Religious Dissent in Late Antiquity addresses two aspects: rhetoric and realities, and consequently, delves into the interplay between the manifest ideologies and daily life found in late antique sources. It is a detailed analysis of selected themes and a close reading of selected texts, tracing key elements and developments in the treatment of dissident religious groups. The book focuses on specific themes, such as the limits of imperial legislation and ecclesiastical control, the end of sacrifices, and the label of magic. Religious Dissent in Late Antiquity examines the ways in which dissident religious groups were construed as religious outsiders, but also explores local rituals and beliefs in late Roman society as creative applications and expressions of the infinite range of human inventiveness.

Dreams, Virtue and Divine Knowledge in Early Christian Egypt

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Publisher : Cambridge University Press
ISBN 13 : 1108481183
Total Pages : 225 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (84 download)

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Book Synopsis Dreams, Virtue and Divine Knowledge in Early Christian Egypt by : Bronwen Neil

Download or read book Dreams, Virtue and Divine Knowledge in Early Christian Egypt written by Bronwen Neil and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2019-04-25 with total page 225 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Explores the significance of dreams in early Christian Egypt, using sources from Philo and Origen to Athanasius and early monks.

From Ancient Rome to Colonial Mexico

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Publisher : University Press of Colorado
ISBN 13 : 164642316X
Total Pages : 301 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (464 download)

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Book Synopsis From Ancient Rome to Colonial Mexico by : David Charles Wright-Carr

Download or read book From Ancient Rome to Colonial Mexico written by David Charles Wright-Carr and published by University Press of Colorado. This book was released on 2023-05-01 with total page 301 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From Ancient Rome to Colonial Mexico compares the Christianization of the Roman Empire with the evangelization of Mesoamerica, offering novel perspectives on the historical processes involved in the spread of Christianity. Combining concepts of empire and globalization with the notion of religion from a postcolonial perspective, the book proposes the method of analytical comparison as a point of departure to conceptualize historical affinities and differences between the ancient Roman Empire and colonial Mesoamerica. An international team of specialists in classical scholarship and Mesoamerican studies engage in an interdisciplinary discussion involving ideas from history, anthropology, archaeology, art history, iconography, and philology. Key themes include the role of religion in processes of imperial domination; religion’s use as an instrument of resistance or the imposition, appropriation, incorporation, and adaptation of various elements of religious systems by hegemonic groups and subaltern peoples; the creative misunderstandings that can arise on the “middle ground”; and Christianity’s rejection of ritual violence and its use of this rejection as a pretext for inflicting other kinds of violence against peoples classified as “barbarian,” “pagan,” or “diabolical.” From Ancient Rome to Colonial Mexico presents a sympathetic vantage point for discussing and attempting to decipher past processes of social communication in multicultural contexts of present-day realities. It will be significant for scholars and specialists in the history of religions, ethnohistory, classical antiquity, and Mesoamerican studies. Publication supported, in part, by Spain’s Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness. Contributors: Sergio Botta,Maria Celia Fontana Calvo, Martin Devecka, György Németh, Guilhem Olivier, Francisco Marco Simón, Paolo Taviani, Greg Woolf, David Charles Wright-Carr, Lorenzo Pérez Yarza Translators: Emma Chesterman, Benjamin Adam Jerue, Layla Wright-Contreras

Imitations of Infinity

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Publisher : University of Pennsylvania Press
ISBN 13 : 0812253132
Total Pages : 288 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (122 download)

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Book Synopsis Imitations of Infinity by : Michael Motia

Download or read book Imitations of Infinity written by Michael Motia and published by University of Pennsylvania Press. This book was released on 2021-11-26 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Imitations of Infinity, Michael A. Motia places Gregory of Nyssa at the center of a world filled with Platonic philosophers, rhetorical teachers, and early Christian leaders all competing over what and how to imitate. Their debates demanded the attentions of people at every level of the Roman Empire.

In Truth

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Publisher : Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN 13 : 1633886255
Total Pages : 459 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (338 download)

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Book Synopsis In Truth by : Matthew Fraser

Download or read book In Truth written by Matthew Fraser and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2020-03-27 with total page 459 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From ancient Rome to the current Internet age, this sweeping history of ideas explores how different epochs wrestled with the issue of truth and lies.From the ancient Greeks and Romans to the modern era, how have people determined what is true? How have those with power and influence sought to control the narrative? Are we living in a post-truth era, or is that notion simply the latest attempt to control the narrative? The relationship between truth and power is the key theme.Moving through major historical periods, the author focuses on notable people and events, from well-known leaders like Julius Caesar and Adolf Hitler to lesser-known individuals like Procopius and Savonarola. He notes distinct parallels in history to current events. Julius Caesar's publication of his Gallic Wars and Civil Wars was an early exercise in political spin not unlike what we see today. During the English Civil War and the Enlightenment, pamphleteering coupled with the new power of the printing press challenged the status quo, as online and social media does in our time. And "fake news" was already being used by German chancellor Otto von Bismarck in nineteenth-century Europe and by the "yellow journalism" of American newspaper magnates William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer near the turn of the twentieth century.The author concludes optimistically, noting that we are debating and discussing truth more fiercely today than in any previous era. The determination to arrive at the truth, despite the manipulations of the powerful, bodes well for the future of democracy.

Empire and Religion

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Author :
Publisher : BRILL
ISBN 13 : 9004347119
Total Pages : 239 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (43 download)

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Book Synopsis Empire and Religion by : Elena Muñiz Grijalvo

Download or read book Empire and Religion written by Elena Muñiz Grijalvo and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2017-07-10 with total page 239 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Empire and religion reflects on the nature of religious change in the Greek cities under Roman rule. The fascinating and fluid process of religious transformation is interpreted in this book in line with the logics of empire.

Carpocrates, Marcellina, and Epiphanes

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Author :
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1000606082
Total Pages : 205 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (6 download)

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Book Synopsis Carpocrates, Marcellina, and Epiphanes by : M. David Litwa

Download or read book Carpocrates, Marcellina, and Epiphanes written by M. David Litwa and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2022-06-24 with total page 205 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Carpocrates, Marcellina, and Epiphanes is the definitive study of the early Christian theologian Carpocrates, his son Epiphanes, and the leader of the Carpocratian movement in Rome, Marcellina. It contains the first full-length study of and commentary on the fragments of Epiphanes, the earliest reports on Carpocrates and Marcellina, as well as the Epistle to Theodore (containing the so-called Secret Gospel of Mark). Readers also encounter an up-to-date history of research on the Carpocratian movement, and three full profiles of all we can know from the earliest Carpocratian leaders. Written in an accessible style, but based on the most careful historical and linguistic research, this volume is a landmark, helping to redefine the field of early Christian history. Carpocrates, Marcellina, and Epiphanes is a welcome addition to the libraries of all students of early Christian theology, researchers investigating early Christian diversity, and scholars of Gnostic, Nag Hammadi and related materials.

Signs, Wonders, and Gifts

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Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0190924675
Total Pages : 272 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (99 download)

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Book Synopsis Signs, Wonders, and Gifts by : Jennifer Eyl

Download or read book Signs, Wonders, and Gifts written by Jennifer Eyl and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2019-06-03 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In much of the scholarship on Paul, activities such as speaking in tongues, prophecy, and miracle healings are either ignored or treated as singular occurrences. Typically, these practices are categorized in such a way that shields Paul and his followers from the influence of so-called paganism. In Signs, Wonders, and Gifts, Jennifer Eyl masterfully argues that Paul did, in fact, engage in range of divinatory and wonder-working practices that were widely recognized and accepted across the ancient Mediterranean. Eyl redescribes, reclassifies, and recontextualizes Paul's repertoire vis-á-vis such widespread, similar practices. Situating these activities within the larger framework of reciprocity that dominated human-divine relationships in antiquity, she demonstrates that divine powers and divine communication were bestowed as benefactions toward Paul and his gentile followers in proportion to their faithfulness and loyalty.