scholarly journals Social Science Perspectives in Early Christian Studies in a Nordic Context

2018 ◽  
Vol 48 (2) ◽  
pp. 76-84 ◽  
Author(s):  
Halvor Moxnes
Keyword(s):  
Social Science ◽  
Early Christianity ◽  
Social Identities ◽  
Modern World ◽  
Second Phase ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
Leading Role ◽  
Cognitive Studies ◽  
The Difference ◽  
Early Christian Studies

This homage to Bruce Malina describes his visit to Norway in 1986, and reviews Nordic scholarship using social science criticism in New Testament and Early Christian studies in the last 40 years. Based on a common history and collaboration in academic politics, the Nordic countries make up a unity that has made it possible to establish Nordic studies in Early Christianity as a central player in international scholarship. Nordic scholars have especially been active in the second phase of social science criticism with its focus on social identities and ritual. Their most significant contribution has been in the exploration of socio-cognitive perspectives, where Helsinki University has had a leading role. A major discussion has been the relation between social-science criticism emphasizing the difference between antiquity and the modern world, and cognitive studies that focus on similarity. However, instead of absolute contrasts they may be regarded as supplementary approaches in historical studies of Early Christianity.

Early Christianity

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gerhard A. van den Heever
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Cultural Production ◽  
Cultural Practices ◽  
Early Christianity ◽  
Church History ◽  
Subsequent Formation ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
Historical Phenomenon ◽  
The Difference ◽  
Early Christian Studies

The study of early Christianity overlaps with closely related fields of study such as New Testament canonical literature, Historical Jesus studies, and early Christian history (or church history/patristics). This survey will concentrate on the broader conceptualization of the formation of the religio-historical phenomenon named Christianity, the religio-historical contexts that formed the matrix for the emergence of Christianity, Christianity as the taxonomizer for a number of cultural practices or as a subset of the broader Greco-Roman Mediterranean culture including its cultural production, and the history of scholarship on early Christianity. Broadly speaking, early Christianity as a historical phenomenon is framed by two “events,” namely, at the one end, the career of Jesus of Nazareth and the subsequent formation of Jesus- or Christ-groups in the 1st century ce, and at the other end, in the 4th century ce, the Constantinian revolution which signaled the Christianization of the Roman Empire (or which goes by the shorthand of “Nicaea”—after the Council called in 325 ce). These are not hard and fast boundaries as there are good reasons to include subsequent developments beyond the Council of Chalcedon, into the 6th century ce, in the purview. Beyond that, the study of early Christianity also encompasses the newly emerged field of “Christian origins,” by which is specifically referred to the interdisciplinary, non-theological theorizing of the origins of Christianity. All in all, this bibliographic overview assumes, in line with new directions in scholarship on early Christianity, that the study of early Christianity is best approached from the perspective of the newly defined study field of early Christian studies. The difference between early Christian studies and disciplines such as early church history and patristics is constituted by the fact that early Christian studies is informed by theories of history and of religion and is practiced as a kind of cultural studies.

Reading Asceticism: Exegetical Strategies in the Early Christian Rhetoric of Renunciation

1997 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 82-104
Author(s):  
Elizabeth A. Clark
Keyword(s):  
Early Christianity ◽  
Contemporary Theory ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
John Chrysostom ◽  
Contemporary Christian ◽  
Cultural Project ◽  
The Difference

AbstractWhen in early Christianity the ascetic body came to occupy a central discursive position, exegetes needed to find in Scripture ballast for their changing cultural project. This essay identifies three strategies by which patristic exegetes appropriated for their own purposes an apparently "underasceticized" Hebrew and early Christian past. The writings of John Chrysostom, Jerome, and Origen, respectively, provide the textual base. Chrysostom minimized the difference separating ancient Hebrew from contemporary Christian values: Hebrew patriarchs and Christian ascetics were not to be hierarchically positioned in relation to each other. Rather, "difference" and "distinction" were signalled through an exegetically established and maintained hierarchy of husband over wife. A second interpretive option, represented by Jerome, accentuated the difference between the "carnality" of the Hebrew past and the "spirituality" of the Christian ascetic present. Although Jerome rejected the charges of "Manicheanism" hurled against him, he nonetheless accorded "distinction" to the ascetics of his own day through ingenious intertextual readings of Scripture. A third exegetical model, represented by Origen, circumvented the debate over the "difference in times" by abandoning any chronological trajectory between Hebrew past and Christian present. Here it was not ascetic bodies that were distinguished from marital ones, but reason from sense, virtue from vice-a choice open to both the celibate and the married. The essay thus seeks to correlate modes of exegesis with the debates over asceticism that were prominent in early Christian writing. It also suggests the usefulness of contemporary theory for appreciating the rhetoric of these Fathers' exegesis.

The Catholic University of America The Center for the Study of Early Christianity AN INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ‘Early Christian Studies and the Academic Disciplines’ Early June 2005

2004 ◽  
Vol 55 (4) ◽  
pp. 813-813
Keyword(s):  
Early Christianity ◽  
Academic Disciplines ◽  
Full Understanding ◽  
Initial Development ◽  
International Conference ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
Catholic University ◽  
Art Historians ◽  
Catholic University Of America ◽  
Early Christian Studies

The study of early Christianity has never been monopolised by historians, even though a keen historical sense is crucial to a full understanding of Christianity's initial development. Biblical scholars, experts on Judaism, classicists, archaeologists, art historians, sociologists and anthropologists, philosophers and theologians have all laid claim to a rightful interest in the field, and have contributed to its vitality and its clarity of interpretation.

Conclusion

2021 ◽  
pp. 111-126
Author(s):  
Jennifer A. Quigley
Keyword(s):  
New Testament ◽  
Early Christianity ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
Early Christian Studies

This concluding chapter returns to the Letter to the Philippians, considering the ways in which a framework of theo-economics helps one to better understand the letter. Theo-economics highlights the multiple transactional entanglements of human and divine beings in early Christ communities in Philippi. As comparing Paul's Letter to the Philippians and Polycarp's Letter to the Philippians helped to trace one of many afterlives of the theo-economic themes present in early Christianity, a broader study compiling evidence from several texts and contexts would begin to untangle the diverse ways in which gender, economy, and theology are intertwined in early Christianity. The chapter then looks at some of the broader implications of the book's approach for New Testament and early Christian studies, for Roman historians, and for the study of religion. By taking seriously the ways in which persons in antiquity understood themselves to be participating in transactions with the divine, one can begin to break down some of the scholarly categories that separate theology from economics.

scholarly journals Review of: Aristotle and Early Christian Thought. London: Routledge, 2019. (Studies in Philosophy and Theology in Late Antiquity; 6). 226 p. ISBN 978-11-38-69799-7

2021 ◽  
pp. 366-374
Author(s):  
Дометиан Курланов
Keyword(s):  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Early Christianity ◽  
Philosophical Study ◽  
Sixth Edition ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
Oxford University ◽  
Christ Church ◽  
History Of ◽  
Christian Thought ◽  
Early Christian Studies

Данная книга представляет собой историко-философское исследование о начальном периоде освоения Аристотеля христианами и является шестым изданием, вышедшим в молодой (с 2013 г.) серии «Studies in Philosophy and Theology in Late Antiquity» лондонского издательства Routledge. Автор книги (он же один из редакторов упомянутой серии) — тьютор по богословию колледжа Christ Church и профессор раннехристианских исследований факультета Теологии и религии Оксфордского университета М. Эдвардс — известен в первую очередь благодаря своим популярным работам по истории раннего христианства и патристической философии. This book is a historical and philosophical study of the early Christian reception of Aristotle and is the sixth edition of the young (since 2013) series Studies in Philosophy and Theology in Late Antiquity published by Routledge, London. The author (who is also one of the editors of the series), M. Edwards, the theology tutor at Christ Church College and professor of Early Christian Studies in the Department of Theology and Religion at Oxford University, is known primarily for his popular works on the history of early Christianity and patristic philosophy. DOI Название объекта Название объекта в переводе ФИО автора / список авторов Место работы автора ORCID Ключевые слова Аннотация

The Fate of Messiah Christology in Early Christianity

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew V. Novenson
Keyword(s):  
Early Christianity ◽  
Jewish Studies ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
Early Christian Studies

According to a standard narrative both in Jewish studies and in early Christian studies, ancient Christian writers redefined “messiah” or “Christ” immediately and entirely, so that early Christian Christology ceased to have anything at all to do with Jewish messianism. In this chapter it is argued that this standard narrative is wrong, that there are numerous strands of early Christian Christology, orthodox as well as heterodox, in which the “Christness” of Christ—the notion of his being anointed with some unguent, by some agent, for some purpose—persisted as a puzzle to be solved and an opportunity to be exploited. The fate of messiah Christology in early Christianity is, in fact, a complicated affair. It did not remain what it had been at the beginning, but neither did it vanish altogether. The ghost of the messianic movement surrounding Jesus of Nazareth haunted early Christian Christology for centuries to follow.

Protecting Difference: Protectionist Strategies and the Parting of the Ways

2020 ◽  
Vol 32 (4-5) ◽  
pp. 364-372
Author(s):  
M Adryael Tong
Keyword(s):  
Early Christianity ◽  
The Other ◽  
Secondary Effect ◽  
Rabbinic Judaism ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
Early Christian Studies ◽  
Parting Of The Ways

Abstract This article takes an interdisciplinary look at protectionist doxa at the intersection of two distinct fields: early Christian studies and rabbinics. I argue that both fields maintain a protectionist doxa of difference; that is, a doxa that early Christianity and rabbinic Judaism are fundamentally different from each other. This difference, which supports the constitution of each field as separate from the other, nevertheless has a secondary effect of shaping our approach to our objects of study—early Christianity and rabbinic Judaism. Specifically, this doxa of difference occludes the ways in which early Christianity and rabbinic Judaism can be similar. I focus specifically on the current “polysemy” debate within rabbinics and show how this doxa has functioned to obstruct comparative approaches across disciplines rather than facilitate them.

Inter-country inequality as a dynamic process and the problem of post-industrial development

2018 ◽  
pp. 5-29 ◽  
Author(s):  
L. M. Grigoryev ◽  
V. A. Pavlyushina
Keyword(s):  
Economic Growth ◽  
Political Institutions ◽  
Industrial Development ◽  
Modern World ◽  
New Approach ◽  
Development Level ◽  
The World ◽  
Long Time ◽  
The Difference ◽  
Post Industrial

The phenomenon of economic growth is studied by economists and statisticians in various aspects for a long time. Economic theory is devoted to assessing factors of growth in the tradition of R. Solow, R. Barrow, W. Easterly and others. During the last quarter of the century, however, the institutionalists, namely D. North, D. Wallis, B. Weingast as well as D. Acemoglu and J. Robinson, have shown the complexity of the problem of development on the part of socioeconomic and political institutions. As a result, solving the problem of how economic growth affects inequality between countries has proved extremely difficult. The modern world is very diverse in terms of development level, and the article offers a new approach to the formation of the idea of stylized facts using cluster analysis. The existing statistics allows to estimate on a unified basis the level of GDP production by 174 countries of the world for 1992—2016. The article presents a structured picture of the world: the distribution of countries in seven clusters, different in levels of development. During the period under review, there was a strong per capita GDP growth in PPP in the middle of the distribution, poverty in various countries declined markedly. At the same time, in 1992—2016, the difference increased not only between rich and poor groups of countries, but also between clusters.

The Missing Rhetorical History Between Quintilian and Augustine

2015 ◽  
Vol 33 (4) ◽  
pp. 349-376
Author(s):  
Mike Duncan
Keyword(s):  
New Testament ◽  
Early Christianity ◽  
Classical Rhetoric ◽  
Rhetorical History ◽  
Church Fathers ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
Christian Thought ◽  
Rhetorical Force ◽  
Apostolic Church

Current histories of rhetoric neglect the early Christian period (ca. 30–430 CE) in several crucial ways–Augustine is overemphasized and made to serve as a summary of Christian thought rather than an endpoint, the texts of church fathers before 300 CE are neglected or lumped together, and the texts of the New Testament are left unexamined. An alternative outline of early Christian rhetoric is offered, explored through the angles of political self-invention, doctrinal ghostwriting, apologetics, and fractured sermonization. Early Christianity was not a monolithic religion that eventually made peace with classical rhetoric, but as a rhetorical force in its own right, and comprised of more factions early on than just the apostolic church.

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