Shedding Light on Early Christian Domestic Cult: Characteristics and New Perspectives in the Context of Archaeological Findings

2017 ◽  
Vol 18-19 (1) ◽  
pp. 201-236
Author(s):  
Verena Fugger
Keyword(s):  
Spatial Distribution ◽  
Asia Minor ◽  
Complex Phenomenon ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
Roman World ◽  
Greco Roman ◽  
Different Characteristics ◽  
Archaeological Perspective ◽  
Domestic Cult

Abstract Focusing primarily on findings from late antique housing structures in Asia Minor this paper approaches the complex phenomenon of early Christian domestic cult from an archaeological perspective. In correlation to pagan house sanctuaries from the east and west of the Greco-Roman world, Christian domestic cult sites are analyzed according to architectural and decorative features as well as to their spatial distribution in the house. Thereby the synopsis of already well known monuments and recent archaeological findings reveals a great diversity of different characteristics of Christian domestic cult sites which has not been taken into account yet.

scholarly journals Diakonos and prostatis: Women’s patronage in Early Christianity

2005 ◽  
Vol 61 (1/2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Carolyn Osiek
Keyword(s):  
Early Christianity ◽  
Substantial Evidence ◽  
Christian Life ◽  
Public And Private ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
Roman World ◽  
Greco Roman ◽  
House Churches ◽  
Patronage System

In spite of numerous studies on the patronage system in Mediterranean antiquity, little attention has been paid to either how the patronage of women was part of the system or how it differed. In fact, there is substantial evidence for women’s exercise of both public and private patronage to women and men in the Greco-Roman world, by both elites and sub-elites. This information must then be applied to early Christian texts to infer how women’s patronage functioned in early house churches and Christian life.

Sin in the New Testament

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeffrey Siker
Keyword(s):  
New Testament ◽  
Early Christianity ◽  
First Century ◽  
Religious Movement ◽  
Jerusalem Temple ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
Roman World ◽  
Greco Roman ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
Christian Message

This book examines what the different New Testament writings have to say about sin within the broader historical and theological contexts of first-century Christianity. These contexts include both the immediate world of Judaism out of which early Christianity emerged, as well as the larger Greco-Roman world into which Christianity quickly spread as an increasingly Gentile religious movement. The Jewish sacrificial system associated with the Jerusalem Temple was important for dealing with human sin, and early Christians appropriated the language and imagery of sacrifice in describing the salvific importance of the death and resurrection of Jesus. Greco-Roman understandings of sin as error or ignorance played an important role in the spreading of the Christian message to the Gentile world. The book details the distinctive portraits of sin in each of the canonical Gospels in relation to the life and ministry of Jesus. Beyond the Gospels the book develops how the letters of Paul and other early Christian writers address the reality of sin, again primarily in relation to the revelatory ministry of Jesus.

The Tragic Christian Self

2020 ◽  
pp. 102-135
Author(s):  
Paul M. Blowers
Keyword(s):  
Literary Culture ◽  
Imago Dei ◽  
Rhetorical Construction ◽  
Substantial Body ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
Roman World ◽  
Greco Roman ◽  
John Chrysostom ◽  
Autobiographical Poetry

This chapter capitalizes on a substantial body of recent research on the literary and rhetorical construction of “lives” (especially “holy lives” in hagiography) and “selves” (moral subjects and agents) in the late-ancient Greco-Roman World. It explores a whole other form of tragical mimesis in early Christian literary culture, namely, the rhetorical and theological profiling of the Christian self as a “tragic self,” a self consciously aware of its own finitude, mortality, and vulnerability to tragic circumstance. The bulk of the chapter closely examines three powerful autobiographical profiles of the tragic Christian self articulated by three of the most prolific late-ancient Christian authors: Gregory Nazianzen, John Chrysostom, and Augustine. While each writer, especially Gregory Nazianzen in his autobiographical poetry, rhetorically reconstructed his own life as an unfolding tragedy, each also developed an objective profile of the tragic Christian self that could apply more broadly to Christian experience of life in the flesh. Though these writers all revere the goodness and beauty of creation, and the integrity of the imago Dei, and though they fervently assert the providence and wisdom of the Creator, there is neither naïvety nor quixotism about the arena of creation in which life is lived, endured, enjoyed, the arena where confrontation of evil and suffering is endemic.

Laying Out the Fleece

2019 ◽  
pp. 67-89
Author(s):  
Kelly J. Murphy
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Context ◽  
Near East ◽  
Early Christianity ◽  
Ancient Near East ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
Roman World ◽  
Greco Roman ◽  
Different Cultures

Chapter 3 approaches Gideon’s story in three different ways: the role of divine signs in the ancient Near East; the portrait of Gideon as a hesitant solider in need of divine assurance in the biblical stories of Judg 6:36–40, 7:1–8, and 7:9–15; and the ways that early Christian exegetes interpreted Gideon’s requests for divine assurance. The chapter continues to trace how masculinity is constructed in different cultures, including the Greco-Roman world of early Christianity, where men were encouraged to fight spiritual battles rather than physical battles. These interpretations serve as a powerful reminder that masculinity is always “in crisis,” tending toward transformation and change, depending on cultural context.

Differing Approaches to Religious Benefaction: The Late Third-Century Acquisition of the Sardis Synagogue

1993 ◽  
Vol 86 (2) ◽  
pp. 139-152 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marianne Palmer Bonz
Keyword(s):  
Present Article ◽  
Third Century ◽  
Asia Minor ◽  
Unpublished Manuscript ◽  
Secondary Literature ◽  
Roman World ◽  
Greco Roman ◽  
Relevant Evidence ◽  
Western Asia ◽  
Historical Importance

Although it was discovered in 1962 and its excavation was completed by the mid-1970s, the synagogue of ancient Sardis in western Asia Minor, with its nearly eighty Greek inscriptions, remains the single most important archaeological source for our knowledge of western diasporan Judaism and its relationship to the wider Greco-Roman world. Despite its historical importance, however, scholars have rarely questioned the assumptions and conclusions of its original interpreters, Andrew Seager and Thomas Kraabel. Yet, for example, on the crucial question of dating (that is,whenthe building actually became a synagogue) these authors clearly disagreed among themselves, as is evident from a careful reading of their jointly written analysis, published in 1983. Their long-awaited report on the Sardis synagogue may clarify this question as well as other important issues. At present, however, confusion abounds in the secondary literature, because in general this literature continues to accept uncritically Kraabel's selection and interpretation of the relevant evidence. Although I have reexamined the major aspects of the question of dating in a previous article, as has Helga Botermann independently and in more detail, the analysis of the building history reflected in this present article is also indebted to John H. Kroll's excellent but still unpublished manuscript of the Greek inscriptions.

The New Self and Reading Practices in Late Antique Christianity

2015 ◽  
Vol 95 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-18
Author(s):  
Guy G. Stroumsa
Keyword(s):  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Early Christianity ◽  
The Self ◽  
Complex Relationship ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
Reading Practices ◽  
Cultural Changes ◽  
Roman World ◽  
Greco Roman

The article deals with the complex relationship between the religious revolution of late antiquity and cultural changes in the Roman world. It focuses on new attitudes to books, and analyses them in parallel with new conceptions of the self emerging in early Christianity. In particular, it seeks to understand the paradox of the early monks having been at once fierce opponents and carriers of Greco-Roman paideia.

Taxation in the Greco-Roman World

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Noah Kaye
Keyword(s):  
Near East ◽  
Asia Minor ◽  
Roman World ◽  
Greco Roman

This article surveys taxation in the Hellenistic kingdoms of Asia Minor in the Near East, focusing on the Seleukid Empire and the Attalids of Pergamon. It argues that the study of Hellenistic systems and habits of taxation can tell us much about the distribution of sovereignty in these composite, multiscalar kingdoms. The negotiation of fiscal rights and privileges in these kingdoms drew cities, kings, courtiers, priests, and soldiers into frequent, even ritualized interactions. The article discusses taxation’s role in the competition over territory and resources, both interstate and internal, while also highlighting the role of taxation in the articulation of each state’s sovereignty claims on communities and individuals. Key sources are reviewed, both epigraphic and archaeological, including cuneiform documents from Hellenistic Babylonia and Greek inscriptions from Asia Minor (Anatolia) and Coele-Syria (Levant).

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