Supplementum Epigraphicum GraecumKatane. The early Christian community, 4th/5th cent. A.D.

2016 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Christian Community ◽  
Early Christian

Sexual Defilement in Early Christian Texts

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Moshe Blidstein
Keyword(s):  
Hebrew Bible ◽  
Second Temple ◽  
Second Century ◽  
Sexual Ethics ◽  
Christian Community ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
Greco Roman ◽  
The Family ◽  
Main Target ◽  
Christian Society

Chapter 7 demonstrates that sexual sin became the main target for purity discourse in early Christian texts, and attempts to explain why. Christian imagery of sexual defilement drew from a number of traditions—Greco-Roman sexual ethics, imagery of sexual sin from the Hebrew Bible and Second Temple texts, and both Jewish and pagan purity laws, all seen through the lens of Paul’s imagery of sexuality and sexual sin. Two broad currents characterized Christian sexual ethics in the second century: one upheld marriage and the family as the basis for a holy Christian society and church, while the second rejected all sexuality, including in marriage. Writers of both currents made heavy use of defilement imagery. For the first, sexual sin was a dangerous defilement, contaminating the Christian community and severing it from God. For the second, more radical current, sexuality itself was the defilement; virginity or continence alone were pure.

scholarly journals Emerging Christianity: what do we know and how?

2021 ◽  
Vol 4 (5) ◽  
pp. 1301-1321
Author(s):  
Andrey S. Desnitsky
Keyword(s):  
Religious Beliefs ◽  
Practical Method ◽  
Religious Studies ◽  
Historical Sources ◽  
Christian Community ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
German Scholar

This article, the second in a series, briefly describes the main problems connected with the reconstruction of emerging Christianity. First of all, it is the scarcity of historical sources. They speak almost exclusively about religious beliefs and leave aside all other aspects of life. Then, it is the clearly expressed interest of both ancient authors and modern researchers to present a “rightful” and ideal picture. As a result, emerges an idealized image of such a Christian community that a modern scholar would like to belong to. A possible methodological solution to this problem can be found in the model of religious studies suggested by the modern German scholar Gerd Theissen. Concerning the practical method, one can suggest an analysis of the polemics as reflected in the early Christian texts, mainly epistles.

Jesus and Paul

2021 ◽  
pp. 139-170
Author(s):  
Donald Senior
Keyword(s):  
Literary Form ◽  
Christian Community ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
Christian Communities ◽  
Greco Roman ◽  
Pastoral Letters ◽  
Mediterranean World ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
Paul's Letters

The writings of Paul form a major part of the New Testament. This includes not only the so-called undisputed letters of Paul but also other letters attributed to him in antiquity that might have been written by later disciples of Paul citing him as author to evoke his apostolic authority. This chapter describes what we know of Paul’s life, beginning with his strong Jewish identity as well as his roots in the Greco-Roman world. Paul himself cites his inaugural visionary experience of the Risen Jesus as a decisive turning point in his life, leading him ultimately to be an ardent proclaimer of the gospel to the Gentile world. Paul’s letters to various early Christian communities in the Greco-Roman Mediterranean world served as extensions of his missionary efforts. Although fashioned in a different literary form than the gospel narratives, Paul’s letters also portray Jesus’s identity as both rooted in Judaism and exhibiting a unique transcendent character and purpose. Paul’s Christology focuses intensely on the significance of Jesus’s death and resurrection. The so-called deutero-Pauline Letters extend Paul’s theological vision; in the case of Colossians and Ephesians, situating the redemptive and reconciling role of Christ within the cosmos, and, in the case of the Pastoral Letters, bringing Paul’s exhortations about the life of the Christian community to some of the developing challenges of the late first-century church.

scholarly journals The origin, function and disappearance of the “Twelve”: Continuity from Jesus to the post-Easter community?

2005 ◽  
Vol 61 (1/2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Dietrich-Alex Koch
Keyword(s):  
First Century ◽  
Synoptic Gospels ◽  
Christian Community ◽  
People Of God ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
Leading Role ◽  
Historical Role ◽  
Origin Function ◽  
Short Time

The group of the Twelve is mentioned 28 times in the Synoptic Gospels. However, the Evangelists were not familiar with the historical role of the Twelve. Even the pre-Easter origin of Matthew 19:28/Luke 22:30 is debatable. On the other hand 1 Corinth 15:3b-5 provides a solid basis for the assumption of a pre-Easter origin of the Twelve. They functioned as a group representing the twelve tribes of Israel as the eschatological people of God. Reaffirmed in this role by the risen Lord they had for a short time a leading role in the early Christian community in Jerusalem. But their importance soon declined because after a short time the twelve former disciples from Galilee could no longer be representative of a rapidly expanding community. In the last decades of the first century the Twelve got a new importance on the literary level of the Gospels.

Respect for Context in Quotations from The Old Testament

1962 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 55-62 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. L. Edgar
Keyword(s):  
New Testament ◽  
Old Testament ◽  
Early Church ◽  
Distinctive Character ◽  
Christian Community ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
The New Testament

The attempt to get behind the gospel record back to the authentic words and acts of Jesus has occupied many scholars of this generation. This has come about because of a scepticism regarding the historical value of the sayings as recorded, and has often concluded by assuming that the New Testament throws light only on what the early Christian community believed Jesus said rather than on what he did say. It is not the writer's intention to belittle the problem, but to suggest it may be approached from a fresh angle. This article seeks to show that in one respect at least the words of Jesus, as recorded in the gospels, are of a distinctive character, especially when compared with the editorial comments of the evangelists, and hence the form of the first may not be as dependent on the evangelists and the early church as sometimes claimed.

Gendered Space

2021 ◽  
pp. 290-302
Author(s):  
Joan E. Taylor
Keyword(s):  
Recent Work ◽  
Third Century ◽  
Christian Women ◽  
Christian Community ◽  
House Church ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
The Third ◽  
Ritual Space ◽  
Gendered Space ◽  
Eusebius Of Caesarea

This chapter considers the meeting place of the Therapeutae, described in Philo of Alexandria’s De Vita Contemplativa, as represented by Eusebius of Caesarea. Since Eusebius read Philo’s treatise as indicating an early Christian community, he sees a church here, with gendered space, affirming this is Christian practice. The ministries of Christian women overall then need then to be considered within a gendered construct of space and movement. While the appropriate ‘place’ for women in the earliest congregations depends on how meeting spaces are configured (for meals, charity, teaching, healing, and prayer), the recent work of Edward Adams has contested the ubiquitous house-church model and allowed for more cognitive templates for how gendered space was constructed. The third-century ‘Megiddo church’ seems to suggest a divided dining hall for women and men, in line with gendered dining as a Hellenistic norm, with centralized ritual space.

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