Review: Magic and Paganism in Early Christianity: The World of the Acts of the Apostles

2002 ◽  
Vol 53 (1) ◽  
pp. 225-229
Author(s):  
G. H. Twelftree
Keyword(s):  
Acts Of The Apostles ◽  
Early Christianity ◽  
The World

Tawus Protogonos: Parallels between the Yezidi Theology and Some Ancient Greek Cosmogonies

2014 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 27-45
Author(s):  
Artur Rodziewicz
Keyword(s):  
Genetic Relationship ◽  
Early Christianity ◽  
Ancient Greek ◽  
The World

The paper concerns some crucial issues of theology and cosmogony of the Yezidis, which have distinct parallels in the writings of the ancient Greeks. A startling coincidence of certain topics and the manner of approach can lead to the conclusion that the Yezidi theology and mythology seem to have a distant genetic relationship with the Greek theology, or―which is also possible―we are dealing with distinct independent inscriptions of the same ideas, meaning here the highest factors governing the world. The paper also contains references to similar topics in the literature of Early Christianity and Gnosticism.

scholarly journals The God of glory: Explicit references to God in discourses in the Acts of the Apostles (7:2–53; 14:15–18; 17:22–31)

2018 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Torsten Jantsch
Keyword(s):  
Speech Acts ◽  
Acts Of The Apostles ◽  
Concept Of God ◽  
Self Sufficiency ◽  
The World ◽  
Insight Into

This essay offers insight into Luke’s concept of God by analysing three sections in which God is explicitly a topic of discussion. These sections are Stephen’s apology (Acts 7:2–53), the account of Paul’s and Barnabas’ mission in Lystra (Acts 14:8–18), and the Areopagus speech (Acts 17:22–31). Because these texts share similar motifs, they can be said to constitute an argumentative series. In these sections, Luke provides a coherent concept of God comprised of many motifs from Luke-Acts. The central motif is that God created the world, which results in God’s self-sufficiency. Therefore, a worship with neither sacrifices nor temple is the appropriate response to God as a selfsufficient, transcendent, spiritual, and perfect being that is completely different from every mortal being on earth.

scholarly journals Responses to Apocalypse: Early Christianity and Extinction Rebellion

Religions ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (8) ◽  
pp. 384
Author(s):  
Cullan Joyce
Keyword(s):  
New Testament ◽  
Early Christianity ◽  
Popular Media ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
The Past ◽  
The World ◽  
Community Strategies ◽  
Cultural Movement

The Extinction Rebellion (XR) movement has grown rapidly in the past two years. In popular media, XR has sometimes been described using religious terminology. XR has been compared to an eco-cult, a spiritual and cultural movement, and described as holding apocalyptic views. Despite XR lacking the distinctive religiosity of new testament and early (pre-150ACE) Christianity, the movement resonates with the early Christian experience in several ways. (1) A characterization of events within the world as apocalyptic. (2) Both feel vulnerable to the apocalypse in specific ways, though each responds differently. (3) Both experience the apocalypse as a community and develop community strategies in response to the apocalypse. The paper sketches certain features of new testament Christianity and compares some of these to XR. The main difference between the two movements is that XR makes decisions to actively become vulnerable, whereas new testament Christianity was more often passively vulnerable. Elements of new testament Christianity provide a context for understanding XR as a response to an apocalypse.

Onesimus A case study of slave conversion in early Christianity

1996 ◽  
Vol 3 (3) ◽  
pp. 259-281 ◽  
Author(s):  
N.H. Taylor
Keyword(s):  
Religious Conversion ◽  
Early Christianity ◽  
Early Church ◽  
Religious Practices ◽  
Historical Reconstruction ◽  
Christian Church ◽  
Christian Community ◽  
The World

AbstractScholarly interest in Onesimus has tended to focus on the history behind the letter to Philemon, the nature of Paul's request to Philemon, and the degree to which Philemon acceded to it. This study seeks to address these and other questions against the background of slavery and the religious practices of domestic slaves in the world of early Christianity. The case af Onesimus can illuminate the place of slaves in the early Church, and thereby broaden our understanding of religious conversion in early Christianity. The historical reconstruction offered here is that Onesimus sought the mediation of Paul in his dispute with Philemon. Paul seeks Onesimus's restoration to Philemon's household, and to the Christian community which gathered there. In leaving Philemon's house Onesimus had abandoned also the Christian church to which he had previously belonged, and Paul sought his reinstatement to both household and church. The study concludes with an application of Snow and Machelek's typology of the religious convert to Onesimus, as reflected in Paul's ideology as given expression in Philemon.

The Cross

2019 ◽  
pp. 625-636
Author(s):  
John Behr
Keyword(s):  
Early Christianity ◽  
Two Dimensions ◽  
Scriptural Interpretation ◽  
The World ◽  
The Cross

This chapter examines the role of the cross in early Christianity, both in constituting Scripture as Scripture and as a privileged locus of scriptural interpretation. It is through the apocalyptic unveiling of Scripture by the cross that the meaning of Scripture is revealed, so that it can be read as Scripture, and the gospel proclaimed on its basis. The cross is also a particularly fertile image, expounded both through scriptural images, from the trees of Paradise to the wood that Elijah throws into the waters to recover the head of the axe; it is also an image that early Christians saw in the world around them, from the sign of Asklepios, to the imperial banners of the army, to the outstretched wings of birds. These two dimensions come together in the early paschal material, both celebrating the victory of the Cross and making Christ present in an immediate manner.

From Jesus to the Writings of the New Testament

2021 ◽  
pp. 41-64
Author(s):  
Donald Senior
Keyword(s):  
New Testament ◽  
Acts Of The Apostles ◽  
Early Christianity ◽  
Essential Elements ◽  
The Other ◽  
Christian Perspective ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
The Impact

While Jesus is not the author of any of the New Testament writings, the link between the mission and identity of Jesus viewed from the perspective of faith and the content and purpose of the New Testament books is essential for their sacred character from a Christian perspective. This chapter reviews the evolution of the traditions about Jesus in early Christianity, tracking the impact of this tradition on the writings of Paul, on the Four Gospels, and on the Acts of the Apostles and the other New Testament books. The chapter also considers some of the essential elements in the transmission of the New Testament and their writings, including their composition in Greek, the nature of early manuscripts of the New Testament, and the question of translation.

The idea of becoming an individual in the context of early Christianity

1997 ◽  
pp. 43-51
Author(s):  
Pavlo Pavlenko
Keyword(s):  
Civil Wars ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Early Christianity ◽  
Roman World ◽  
Greco Roman ◽  
The Social ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of ◽  
Different Parts

The last centuries before the beginning of the Christian era, the first centuries after that, were enveloped in the history of mankind as a period of the total crisis and the decline of the Greco-Roman civilization, a crisis that covered virtually all spheres of the social life of the Roman world and which, as ever before, experienced almost every one, whether he is a slave or a free citizen, a small merchant or a big slave or an aristocrat. As a reaction to the crisis, in various parts of the empire the civil wars and the slavery uprising erupt in different parts of the empire. Under such conditions of life, the world around itself no longer seemed to man to be self-sufficient, harmonious, stable, "good" and warded by a cohort of traditional deities. Yes, and the gods themselves were now turned out to be incapable, unable to change the unceasing flow of fatal doom.

Holiness and Sanctity in the Early Church

2011 ◽  
Vol 47 ◽  
pp. 1-18 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew Louth
Keyword(s):  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Early Christianity ◽  
Early Period ◽  
The Other ◽  
Early Church ◽  
Western Society ◽  
The World ◽  
And Function ◽  
Holy Man ◽  
The Way

In 1971 Peter Brown published his justly famous article, ‘The Rise and Function of the Holy Man in Late Antiquity’. It is no exaggeration to say that this article — and the host of articles and books that succeeded it — have transformed the way we think about saints and their cult in late antiquity. This change is part of a wider transformation of the study of the world of early Christianity, a change that has much to do with the changing, not to say declining, place of Christianity in Western society. The very words Peter Brown used in the title of his article are emblematic of this changed perspective: holy, man, late antiquity. Others have noted the change of words from what one might have expected, or from what one would have expected a few decades, even years, earlier. Averil Cameron spoke of Peter Brown ‘rightly avoiding the term “saint”, for in this early period there were no formal processes of sanctification, and no official bestowal of sainthood’. Put like that, it seems obvious why Brown talked about the ‘holy man’. I want to suggest that the nature of the change involved is much less easy to track down, and furthermore that awareness of the specific suggestions implicit in Brown’s choice of words will enable us to contemplate the world of late antiquity from the perspective Brown was largely inaugurating, while not losing the other perspectives that were implicit in the language and concepts laid aside.

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