The Formation of the Canon and the Creation of the “New Testament”

2021 ◽  
pp. 65-101
Author(s):  
Donald Senior
Keyword(s):  
New Testament ◽  
Parallel Process ◽  
Christian Faith ◽  
Key Factors ◽  
Entire Process ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
Christian Communities ◽  
The Core ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
Key Factor

A key factor in considering the various writings of the New Testament as sacred and normative was their eventual inclusion into the “canon.” This chapter traces the evolution of the canon, the process by which it was formed, and the apparent norms for judging which books should be included. The entire process is a subject of much debate and hypothesis. An assumption on the part of early Christianity, similar to a parallel process occurring in Judaism, was that certain books were divinely inspired and ultimately originated in divine authority. Key factors in judging which books should be “canonical” were such criteria as connection with figures of the early apostolic church, harmony with the fundamental convictions of Christian faith, and the “reception” or widespread use of certain books by early Christian communities. While the core books of the canon were accepted early, such as the Letters of Paul and the Gospels, other writings were subject to some dispute before being accepted.

Kann man die neutestamentlichen Briefe der Gattung „Apostelbrief“ zuordnen?

2015 ◽  
Vol 57 (3) ◽  
pp. 227-250
Author(s):  
Bärbel Bosenius
Keyword(s):  
New Testament ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
Christian Communities ◽  
The New Testament

During the last 40 years New Testament scholarship did not apply the term “apostolic letter” consistently. All early Christian letters and only the New Testament or Pauline respectively Deutero-Pauline letters were called “apostolic letters” by New Testament scholars. Since the term from the sources ἀπόστολος in the undisputed Pauline letters refers to Paul’s function as founder of early Christian communities but not to his function as their leader, New Testament scholars should avoid the misleading term “apostolic letter.” Within the corpus of New Testament letters one should rather differentiate between “kerygmatic letters,” “pseudepigraphic Pauline letters” and “early Christian Diaspora letters.”

scholarly journals The New Testament teaching on family matters

2006 ◽  
Vol 62 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Carolyn Osiek
Keyword(s):  
New Testament ◽  
First Century ◽  
History Of Christianity ◽  
Women Slaves ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
Christian Communities ◽  
Patriarchal Family ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
History Of ◽  
Christian Family

The article shows that first-century urban Christian communities, such as those founded by Paul, brought in both whole families and individual women, slaves, and others. An example of an early Christian family can be seen in the autobiographical details of the Shepherd of Hermas, whether factual or not. The article aims to demonstrate that the New Testament teaching on family gives two very different pictures: the structured harmony of the patriarchal family as presented in the household codes of Colossians 3 and Ephesians 5, over against the warnings and challenges of Jesus in the Synoptic Gospels to leave family in favor of discipleship. The developing devotion to martyrdom strengthened the appeal to denial. Another version of the essay was published in Horsley, Richard A (ed), A people’s history of Christianity, Volume 1: Christian origins, 201-220. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress.1.

Reconfiguring Early Christian ‘Faith’

Ecclesiology ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 354-362 ◽  
Author(s):  
David G. Horrell
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Review Essay ◽  
Critical Assessment ◽  
Christian Faith ◽  
Critical Questions ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
Christian Communities ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Important Study ◽  
The New Testament

Teresa Morgan’s Roman Faith and Christian Faith provides a major new study of the lexicon of ‘faith’ (pistis/fides) in the early Roman Empire. This review essay provides a summary of the book’s contents as well as a critical assessment. The book begins with study of uses of pistis and fides in Greek and Roman sources, in domestic and personal relations, in military and religious contexts. It then moves to the Septuagint, before turning to the New Testament, which is considered in detail. The early Christian sources are unusual in the prominence and weight they give to pistis, but their usage nonetheless fits within the wider social and cultural matrix, in which pistis and fides primarily express the notion of trust and express the importance of trust and fidelity in a wide range of social and religious relationships. In these early Christian sources there is a heavy focus on divine-human pistis, but this creates networks of trusting and trustworthiness that are crucial to the formation and cohesion of early Christian communities. Some critical questions may be raised – for example, concerning Morgan’s heavy focus on divine-human pistis, and her arguments against the early emergence of a titular usage of pistis to denote the early Christian movement – but overall this is an important study which should reconfigure our sense of early Christian (and especially Pauline) pistis, which is less about ‘belief’, whether salvific or propositional, and more about relationships of trust, which are the foundation of community.

scholarly journals The Early Church’s Position on Law and the State.

2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 40-63
Author(s):  
Matija Stojanović
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
New Testament ◽  
Legal System ◽  
The State ◽  
Legal Order ◽  
Christian Faith ◽  
Legal Systems ◽  
Christian Church ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
The New Testament

This article will try to uncover the stance which the early Christian Church held on the legal system of the Roman Empire, in an attempt to reconstruct a stance which could apply to legal systems in general. The sources which we drew upon while writing this paper were primarily those from the New Testament, beginning with the Four Gospels and continuing with the Acts of the Apostoles and the Epistoles, and, secondarily, the works of the Holy Fathers and different Martyrologies through which we reconstructed the manner in which the Christian faith was demonstrated during the ages of persecutions. The article tries to highlight a common stance which can be identified in all these sources and goes on to elaborate how it relates to legal order in general.

The Significance of φιλέω and φίλος in the Tradition of Jesus Sayings and in the Early Christian Communities

1997 ◽  
Vol 90 (4) ◽  
pp. 393-409 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ann Graham Brock
Keyword(s):  
New Testament ◽  
Apostle Paul ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
Christian Communities ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
The Way

Due in part to the prominence of the word ⋯γαπάω in the New Testament, readers of that book have often believed that the early Christians as a group considered ⋯γαπάω to refer to a superior form of love than that represented by the Greek word φιλέω. One of the primary reasons for this conviction is the way in which the apostle Paul uses ⋯γάπη and ⋯γαπάω to such an extent in his epistles. In fact, Paul's usage of the ⋯γαπάω word family is so consistent that with one exception the word φιλέω is entirely absent from his vocabulary. Likewise, in the Septuagint the occurrences of ⋯γαπάω outnumber those of φιλέω by a ratio of 266 to a mere fifteen.1

Conclusions

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alicia D. Myers
Keyword(s):  
New Testament ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
The Core ◽  
Gendered Identities ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
Gender Hierarchies ◽  
Gender Constructions ◽  
Ideal Womanhood

This chapter summarizes the findings of the previous chapters, arguing that acknowledging the gender hierarchies and physiological constructions at the core of maternal imagery in the New Testament serves at least two purposes. First, it enables readers of the New Testament and early Christian literatures to understand better the imagery and theologies within these writings. Second, it exposes the fluidity and contested nature of gender constructions in developing Christianity, particularly in discussions of soteriology. Rather than consistently enforcing or prohibiting a maternal telos on women, these writings emphasize a need to be oriented toward life, the source and continuance of which is located in God alone. This reframing of ideal womanhood simultaneously reframes masculinity as well, even though it perpetuates the equation of perfection and masculinity. Noting the constructed nature of these gendered identities, however, can encourage contemporary readers to move beyond ancient gender hierarchies to better appreciate all life.

A New Reading of one of the Earliest Christian Letters Outside the New Testament and the Dangers of Early Christian Communities in Egypt

Nova Tellus ◽  
1970 ◽  
Vol 28 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ilaria L. E. Ramelli
Keyword(s):  
New Testament ◽  
Gospel Of Mark ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
Christian Communities ◽  
Critical Situation ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
New Framework

The letter of Ammonius to Apollonius, preserved in an Oxyrhynchus papyrus and datable to the end of the I or the beginning of the ii century AD, contains a superlinear stroke over the X of the initial xaipein, which is the sign of a nomen sacrum that, together with many other clues in this epistolê kekhiasmenê, points to the Christianity of the writer and the addressee. In this new framework, many details of the letter become intelligible and the whole document, with an emphasis on the necessity of a circumspect behaviour and the use of a cryptic communication code, attests to the critical situation of the Christian communities in those days, when Christianity was a superstitio illicita and Christians had to try not to be denounced. I propose an analysis of the letter in this light: many aspects in its language, lexical choices, and rhetoric are telling. The new Christian reading of this letter allows us to recover one of the earliest Christian letters known and provides precious documentation of the birth of Christianity in Egypt, perhaps in Alexandria itself, from which the “Secret Gospel of Mark” also stems.

Introduction

2021 ◽  
pp. xviii-10
Author(s):  
Alison G. Salvesen
Keyword(s):  
New Testament ◽  
Textual Criticism ◽  
Early Modern Period ◽  
Biblical Studies ◽  
Christian Theology ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
Christian Communities ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
The Individual

This introductory chapter provides an overview of the Handbook and its consciously wide-ranging approach. Part I defines and explains the term Septuagint, and describes the development of the study of this significant corpus from the early modern period to the present day. Part II gives an overview of the socio-historical setting of the Septuagint, setting out prominent aspects of its nature as a translation including its incorporation of religious ideas and discussing the influence of the myth of Septuagint origins in the so-called Letter of Aristeas. It also surveys its early transmission in papyri, inscriptions, and manuscripts. Part III sets out in separate chapters the nature of the individual books of the Septuagint. Part IV looks at the Jewish reception and usage of the translated books, including revisions to the texts and the creation of alternative Greek versions. Part V turns to Christian use of the Septuagint, from the New Testament through to Greek and Latin writers. Part VI explains the significance of the ‘daughter’ versions rendered from Greek into a number of languages for the purposes of early Christian communities, and also some recent major scholarly translations of the Septuagint into modern European tongues. The last section, Part VII, provides some reflections on the significance of the Septuagint for biblical studies, especially textual criticism and New Testament, and for Christian theology. It finally looks at how illustrations in Septuagint manuscripts have interpreted the biblical text.

scholarly journals Od charyzmatu do "Ordo exorcistarum". Rozwój praktyki egzorcyzmu w pierwotnym chrześcijaństwie

Vox Patrum ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 59 ◽  
pp. 67-85
Author(s):  
Leszek Misiarczyk
Keyword(s):  
New Testament ◽  
Jesus Christ ◽  
Early Christianity ◽  
Christian Faith ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
Ancient Judaism ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
Evil Spirits ◽  
The Individual

The term „exorcism” comes from the Latin exorcismus and from the Greek term, which originally meant „an oath”, but later in a Christian environ­ment has assumed the meaning „to curse” or „to expel the demons/evil spirits”. The practice of exorcism in early Christianity has been influenced by Old Testa­ment, ancient Judaism and especially by the exorcisms done by Jesus Christ and described in the New Testament. In patristic texts of IInd and IIIrd century we find the following elements of an exorcism: prayer in the name of Jesus, recitation of some elements of early Christian Creed, reading of the Gospel and it was done as an order. An exorcism has been accompanied by the imposition of hands, fast and using of the holy cross. An exorcism has been usually performed publicly and was treated as evidence of the truth of the Christian faith. Until the IIIrd century there was no office of exorcist in the ancient Church and the ministry of it was not con­nected at all with the priesthood, but depended on the individual charisma received from God and was confirmed by the effectiveness to realase the possessed people.

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