Educating Jesus: The Search for a Plausible Context

2006 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 7-33 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Foster
Keyword(s):  
First Century ◽  
Historical Jesus ◽  
Social Milieu ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
The Social ◽  
Christian Literature

AbstractMany reconstructions of the life of the historical Jesus have tended to portray him as being born into illiterate peasant stock. By so doing, significant statements in the Gospels, both canonical and non-canonical, are ignored. While much caution is needed, since there is a tendency to valorize the young Jesus in early Christian literature and to heighten miraculous events surrounding his childhood, nonetheless there are indicators that Jesus' background did not reflect the lowest echelons of Galilean peasantry. Instead, it is suggested that internal Gospel evidence and knowledge of aspects of the social milieu of first-century Judaism give weight to seeing Jesus as a person with what would now be classified as functional on basic literacy levels.

scholarly journals Was Jesus Illegitimate? The Evidence of His Social Interactions

2007 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 81-100
Author(s):  
James McGrath
Keyword(s):  
Social Interactions ◽  
Social Status ◽  
First Century ◽  
Historical Jesus ◽  
Social Category ◽  
Jewish Society ◽  
Illegitimate Child ◽  
The Social

AbstractThis article examines the social status of the historical Jesus in relation to recent studies that place Jesus into the social category of an illegitimate child. After surveying the evidence with respect to the situation of such individuals in first-century Mediterranean and Jewish society, we shall proceed to examine whether Jesus’ implied social status (as evidenced by accounts of his adult social interactions) coheres with what one would expect in the case of someone who bore the stigma of that status. Our study suggests that the scandal caused by Jesus’ association with the marginalized clearly implies that he did not himself fall into that category.

The Presence of God in the Community: The Eucharist in its Early Christian Cultic Context

1976 ◽  
Vol 29 (5) ◽  
pp. 451-459
Author(s):  
David E. Aune
Keyword(s):  
Lord's Supper ◽  
Religious Community ◽  
First Century ◽  
Religious Traditions ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
Parish Church ◽  
Presence Of God ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
Essential Form ◽  
Christian Literature

Every religion has an overall structure which both gives meaning to and derives it from each of its constituent parts. Ordinarily, this structure may be seen in its most essential form in cultic worship where religious experience both is determined by and itself determines the shape and meaning of religious traditions. In contemporary Roman Catholicism, for example, the Eucharist is understood in several ways due to the variety of possible contexts in which the Mass may be experienced; a religious community and a parish church are examples of widely diverging contexts. However, if we wish to understand the significance and place of the Eucharist in a period as remote and as different from our own as that of first century Christianity, we are faced with a radically different problem. One popular approach to such an inquiry would carefully examine the theme of the Lord's Supper throughout the New Testament and other early Christian literature so that the results of the study could be used to compare and contrast the Eucharist (s) of early Christianity with that of one or another modern Christian denomination. The all but unavoidable result of this approach would be the tendency of each theological tradition to retroject its own understanding of the Eucharist back into the early Church, whether it would find itself at home there or not.

Perpetua

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Barbara K. Gold
Keyword(s):  
Social Status ◽  
Family Education ◽  
Third Century ◽  
Social Milieu ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
Physical Conditions ◽  
The Third ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Status ◽  
Roman Africa

This book is an overview of the Christian martyr Perpetua’s life and the cultural, religious, political, literary, social, and physical contexts in which she lived. It does not attempt to be a full biography of Perpetua because we do not have enough information about her. It discusses the narrative work in Latin, the Passio Sanctarum Perpetuae et Felicitatis, composed by her and by her editor while she was awaiting execution, and its authenticity. It also discusses the descriptions of martyrs as athletes and the gendering of martyrs in early Christian writers; the social milieu in which Perpetua lived in ancient Carthage; the conditions in Roman Africa in the third century CE; the conditions for Christians and pagans in the third century CE; Perpetua’s family, education, and social status; the social and physical conditions of martyrdom in the third century CE; and the legacy of Perpetua and her text among later writers. The book aims to discuss in depth such contested issues as whether Perpetua herself wrote the part of the text attributed to her, how fictionalized the accounts of martyrdom accounts were, and what the status of these martyrs and their stories were during the pre-Constantinian period.

Words, Worlds, Works Making Our Way With New Testament Scholarship1

1998 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 35-58
Author(s):  
Pieter J.J. Botha
Keyword(s):  
New Testament ◽  
Social Institutions ◽  
Educational Process ◽  
Cultural Experience ◽  
Cross Cultural Communication ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
The Social ◽  
Christian Literature ◽  
The Many ◽  
Ways Of Being

AbstractNew Testament scholarship attempts rational, sensible understanding of the early Christian literature and its world. It engages in a conversation with the past in order to discover, learn about, and criticise ways of being human. Such understanding implies an extensive knowledge of the many parts of our complex social context and conceptual heritage and then integrates these into the enquiring and religious discourses of today. It has the potential to make a useful contribution to the educational process by creating a historical consciousness, by installing a respect for the 'other' through cross-cultural communication and exposure to a multi-cultural experience and by inculcating a critical attitude towards the social institutions of our day.

scholarly journals In the kingdom everybody has enough – A social-scientific and realistic reading of the parable of the lost sheep (Lk 15:4–6)

2011 ◽  
Vol 67 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ernest Van Eck
Keyword(s):  
Kingdom Of God ◽  
First Century ◽  
Historical Jesus ◽  
Cultural Norms ◽  
Realistic Interpretation ◽  
Norms And Values ◽  
The Social ◽  
Mediterranean World ◽  
History Of ◽  
Social Scientific

This article presents a social-scientific and realistic interpretation of the parable of the lost sheep (Lk 15:4–6). Attention is given to the history of the interpretation of the parable, its integrity and authenticity, and verisimilitude. It is argued that the Lukan-version (Q 15:4–6) of the parable represents the earliest layer of the historical Jesus-tradition. Specific attention is given to the social and economic registers presupposed in the parable, as well as certain cultural norms and values of the first-century Mediterranean world in which Jesus told the parable. The conclusion reached is that the parable exemplifies several aspects of the kingdom of God, aspects that are also present in several other parables that Jesus told about the kingdom.

Frühchristliche Religion als Wahrnehmungsobjekt und Erkenntnisprozess

2014 ◽  
Vol 74 (1) ◽  
pp. 6-21
Author(s):  
Michael Tilly
Keyword(s):  
New Testament ◽  
Historical Jesus ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
History Of Religions ◽  
History Of ◽  
Christian Literature ◽  
The Relationship

AbstractThis essay explores the exegetical possibilities and boundaries of the history of religions approach to the New Testament. In part 1 it offers an overview of the history of historical critical exegesis of the New Testament from the magisterial research of the history of religions school to the newest approaches of historical Jesus research. In part 2, three hermeneutical problems for the exegete are outlined: the relationship between text and tradition, the relationship between early Christian literature and its surroundings and the relationship between the New Testament as an ancient collection and its reception today.

The Historical Jesus and the Speech of Gamaliel (Acts 5.35–9)

1993 ◽  
Vol 39 (4) ◽  
pp. 500-517 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeffrey A. Trumbower
Keyword(s):  
Careful Analysis ◽  
Ancient World ◽  
First Century ◽  
Historical Jesus ◽  
Social Conventions ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
General Terms ◽  
Mediterranean World ◽  
The Many

As a supplement to the careful analysis of early Christian texts, anyone studying the historical Jesus of Nazareth is inevitably drawn to make comparisons between him and other figures from the ancient world in general, and first-century Palestine in particular. Just what type of figure was he? For example, in his book, Jesus the Jew, Geza Vermes emphasizes Jesus' compatibility with the category of Jewish charismatic figures like Honi the Circle-drawer (perhaps a Galilean) and Hanina Ben-Dosa (definitely a Galilean). Morton Smith compares the actions and words of Jesus to the magical papyri and finds remarkable similarities to ancient magicians, thus the title of his book, Jesus the Magician. Smith, like Celsus 1800 years earlier, delights in showing how Jesus was just one of the many fakers and charlatans practising the magical arts in the first-century Mediterranean world. More recently, Burton Mack has argued that Jesus was a cynic sage like those found in Diogenes Laertius' Lives of Eminent Philosophers. In Mack's reconstruction, Jesus' thought was not eschatological, nor did Jesus intend to found a movement or movements devoted to himself; rather, he preached the flaunting of social conventions and criticized his culture in general terms, like other cynic philosophers.

Role Of Apocrypha and Saints’ Lives, Their Transmission and Readership in The history of Childhood and Family

2020 ◽  
Vol 48 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 45-52
Author(s):  
Marijana Vuković
Keyword(s):  
Everyday Life ◽  
History Of Childhood ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
Christian Literature ◽  
Religious Aspects

The article proposes to explore the potentials of examining Apocrypha and saints’ lives in pursuit of knowledge about children, childhood, and family in the past. It first stresses a necessity to accurately define Apocrypha and saints’ lives within early Christian literature. The transmission of Apocrypha and saints’ lives in their textual varieties, the number of manuscripts they appear in, and their absence of authorship also demand further discussion. Scholars additionally do not reach the consensus over their readership, reputation, and audience in the same period.   Although a great deal of potential remains in these genres for the pursuances named above, one has to bear in mind the restrictions. One has to be cautious when prying out social realities from hagiography. One also has to distinguish the theological and religious aspects from the social realities and realities of everyday life in such texts, as well as to pay attention to their literary and genre aspects. Finally, one may wish to trace varieties of individual texts in manuscripts, because they sometimes give different information about our matters of interest.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document