scholarly journals Fra huskult til basilika

2004 ◽  
Author(s):  
Per Bilde
Keyword(s):  
Lecture Hall ◽  
Christian Church ◽  
Near Eastern ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
Christian Churches ◽  
Dwelling House ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
Church Building ◽  
History Of ◽  
Dining Room

It is still an astonishing fact that no material remains of early Christian churches have been found antedating the building in Dura-Europos at the Euphrat River in present day Iraq. It was a usual private dwelling house that in 241 was rebuilt and transformed into a Christian cult place. This building, however, in no way resembled the magnificent Christian basilicas that were built from the time of Constantine the Great (ruling 306/324-337), and only the baptistery in the rebuilt houses proves that it actually was a Christian building. In the present article I briefly scetch the history of the development of the Christian cult building from the private meeting places at the time of the New Testament to the Constantinian basilicas. The main purpose, however, is to discuss the character of the Christian cult house in relation to a number of related earlier and contemporary types of buildings such as the classical Hellenistic-Roman temples, the Jewish synagogue and a number of Graeco-Roman buildings that can be reagrded as historical forerunners of the Christian church building: the Greek counsel hall (bouleutêrion), the hall of initiation (e.g. Eleusis), the lecture hall (such as gymnasium and stoa), the Greek and Near Eastern cult theatres, the roman basilica and the Roman mithraeum. From the beginning, obviously, the Christian cult building  was a meeting house like the Greek counsel hall, the roman basilica and the Jewish synagogue. But it was also a dining room, and, at least from 241, with thebatistery in Dura-Europos, it also became a hall of initiation. Thus, the Christian cult building developed by uniting a number of eatlier types of buildings, secular and sacred, and from the time of Constantine, the Christian basilica united the secular Greek meeting house, which was continued and further developed in the Jewish synagogue, the Greek hall of initiation, and the classical Graeco-Roman Temple.

Private Associations in the Ancient Greek World

2021 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
Ancient Greek ◽  
Global Networks ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
Christian Churches ◽  
Mediterranean World ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
Private Associations ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Greek World

Private associations abounded in the ancient Greek world and beyond, and this volume provides the first large-scale study of the strategies of governance which they employed. Emphasis is placed on the values fostered by the regulations of associations, the complexities of the private-public divide (and that divide's impact on polis institutions) and the dynamics of regional and global networks and group identity. The attested links between rules and religious sanctions also illuminate the relationship between legal history and religion. Moreover, possible links between ancient associations and the early Christian churches will prove particularly valuable for scholars of the New Testament. The book concludes by using the regulations of associations to explore a novel and revealing aspect of the interaction between the Mediterranean world, India and China.

The Development of the “Apostolic Tradition” in Early Christian Worship

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maxwell E. Johnson
Keyword(s):  
Early History ◽  
Christian Initiation ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
Christian Communities ◽  
Liturgical Year ◽  
Language Groups ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
The Hours ◽  
History Of ◽  
Christian Worship

Contrary to the assumptions often held by previous scholars, contemporary liturgical scholarship is coming increasingly to realize and emphasize that Christian worship was diverse even in its biblical and apostolic origins, multi- rather than monolinear in its development, and closely related to the several cultural, linguistic, geographical, and theological expressions and orientations of distinct churches throughout the early centuries of Christianity. Apart from some rather broad (but significant) commonalities discerned throughout various churches in antiquity, the traditions of worship during the first three centuries of the common era were rather diverse in content and interpretation, depending upon where individual practices are to be located. Indeed, already in this era, together with the diversity of Christologies, ecclesiologies, and, undoubtedly, liturgical practices encountered in the New Testament itself, the early history of the “tradition” of Christian worship is, simultaneously, the early history of the developing liturgical traditions of several differing Christian communities and language groups: Armenian, Syrian, Greek, Coptic, and Latin, We should not, then, expect to find only one so-called “apostolic” liturgical tradition, practice or theology surviving in this period before the Council of Nicea (325 ce) but, rather, great diversity both within the rites themselves as well as in their theological interpretations. This essay highlights the principal occasions for Christian worship in the first three centuries for which the textual and liturgical evidence is most abundant: Christian initiation, the eucharistic liturgy with its central anaphoral prayer, daily prayer (the liturgy of the hours), and the feasts and seasons of the liturgical year.

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.

scholarly journals En la plenitud del tiempo: Reconociendo Daniel 9:24-27 en el Nuevo Testamento

2021 ◽  
Vol 36 (1) ◽  
pp. 62-79
Author(s):  
David Tasker
Keyword(s):  
New Testament ◽  
Christian Church ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
The People ◽  
The New Testament

This article explores the influence of the seventy weeks prophecy of Daniel 9:24-27 in the New Testament. Of particular interest to this study is the string of references that refer to “the fullness of time.” The author enquires about the significance that the people of the New Testament placed upon these statements, how they were impacted by the vision of Daniel 9:24-27, and how widespread was the understanding of the 70 weeks as weeks of years in the early Christian Church. The paper concludes that the understanding of people in the New Testament era was that “the fullness of time” had arrived, based on the “weeks” of Daniel’s prophecy being counted as years rather than days. 

scholarly journals Witnesses of the Resurrected Messiah

2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. 671-696
Author(s):  
Janusz Kucicki
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Christian Church ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
History Of ◽  
New Israel

The dominant classification of Acts as the history of the early Christian Church whose main aim is to present the spread of the nascent movement from a less important part of the Roman Empire (Judea) to the very heart of the Empire (Rome), seems to be supported by Ac 1, 8 which is often taken as a kind of very general a table of contents. However, the rather unexpected end of Acts (a short and laconic account regarding Paul’s period in Rome), and Luke’s approach to and use of his sources, allow us to assume that Luke was aiming rather at a great story involving some main hearos and many other participants than are involved in just one thematic story. Following this assumption, based on the content of Acts, it is possible to individuate two main heroes (Peter and Paul) whose fate is somehow connected with many other persons that are also involved in giving witness to Jesus the Resurrected Messiah. In this study we look at Acts as the story concerning the two the most important witnesses, Peter and Paul, in order to determine their contribution to establishing the structural and doctrinal foundation of the New Israel.      

Churches in Ancient Christianity

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Last
Keyword(s):  
Spatial Diversity ◽  
Peter 2 ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
Christian Churches ◽  
Greco Roman ◽  
House Churches ◽  
Church Structure ◽  
Analogous Data ◽  
History Of ◽  
Private Associations

The English term, “church,” derives from the Greek, kuriakon (κυριακόν) (“that which belongs to the lord”), and is the traditional English translation for a variety of Greek and Latin terms that were used to designate gatherings of Christ-believers in antiquity, including the eventually-dominant ekklēsia /ecclesia (1 Cor 1:2), as well as synōdos (NewDocs 6.26.19), thiasōtai (Eusebius, E.C. 1.3.12), synagōgē (Jas. 2.2), koinōnia (Origen, Cels. 1.1), hetaeria (Pliny, Ep. 10.96), and corpus (Tertullian, Apol. 39). The reality that these designations also denoted Greco-Roman associations (including Judean synagogues)––and that titles for church offices were already employed by private associations––prompted earlier research to explore terminological convergences between ancient churches and private associations, and to investigate the extent to which ancient churches were modeled after Greco-Roman associations (e.g., Hatch, The Organization of the Early Christian Churches) and synagogues (e.g., Burtchaell, From Synagogue to Church). Some recent scholarship on ancient churches has abandoned the quest to determine their identity (e.g., as associations, synagogues, philosophical schools), and now consults analogous data for the heuristic purpose of raising new questions about church structure and practices from ancient associations about whose practices we know much more (e.g., Kloppenborg, “Membership Practices in Pauline Christ Groups”). Other researchers continue to speak about the identity of churches as associations (e.g., Alikin, Earliest History of the Christian Gathering) or as unique from associations (e.g., Klauck, Hausgemeinde und Hauskirche im frühen Christentum). This bibliography covers ancient churches from the earliest period up to 313 ce––the so-called ante pacem era. In these centuries there was diversity from church to church but some commonalities existed at the foundation of diverse ancient church practices: the earliest churches were gatherings of Christ-believers (and invitees of various kinds) for liturgical activities such as prayer, reading, preaching, teaching, hymns (1 Cor 14:26; Didache 8–10; Justin, Apology 66–67) and social purposes such as eating, drinking, and vying for honor (1 Cor 11:17–34; 2 Peter 2:13; Ignatius, Smyrneans 8:2–4; Pliny, Epistles 10.97; Hippolytus, Apostolic Tradition 25; Tertullian, Apology 39). It has been suggested that liturgical practices were rather uniform in churches (Salzmann, Lehren und Ermahnen) but this theory has not persuaded most scholars (Rouwhorst, “The Roots of the Early Christian Eucharist”). Likewise, meal practices in early churches, while perhaps deriving from a common Greco-Roman banquet tradition, nonetheless might have been structured differently from church to church (McGowan, Ascetic Eucharists). In terms of architecture, it is traditionally thought that pre-313 ce churches met almost exclusively in un-renovated houses and, later, renovated houses (Filson, “The Significance of the Early House Churches”) but Adams, in his 2013 monograph, Earliest Christian Meeting Places, highlights the usage of rented space and other un-renovated meeting venues––and therefore identifies spatial diversity––in this period.

Crucifixion

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Granger Cook ◽  
David W. Chapman
Keyword(s):  
New Testament ◽  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Second Temple ◽  
Ancient World ◽  
Second Temple Judaism ◽  
Near Eastern ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
Greco Roman ◽  
Multidisciplinary Study ◽  
The New Testament

Crucifixion and related bodily suspension penalties were widely employed in Antiquity for the punishment of criminals and in times of war. Jesus of Nazareth is the most famous victim of the cross, and many scholars of crucifixion approach the topic with interest in Jesus’ death; however, scholarship on crucifixion also provides insights into (among other fields) ancient warfare, criminal law, political history, and cultural imagery. Invariably, such a subject requires multidisciplinary study. Current areas of discussion include the definition of crucifixion itself, especially in light of the range of use of ancient terminology. Further debates concern the origins of the punishment, the cessation of its practice (at least in the West), the precise means of death, and whether certain cultures (e.g., Second Temple Judaism) endorsed the penalty. A large portion of this article examines the many issues related to crucifixion as a form of execution in Antiquity. The topic of crucifixion in the ancient world includes a variety of issues: Near Eastern suspensions, Greek and Roman extreme penalties and crucifixion, the practice of penal suspension and crucifixion in Second Temple Judaism, the terminology for crucifixion and suspension, crucifixion in the New Testament, the practice of crucifixion in Late Antiquity, crucifixion and law in the ancient world, the question of crucifixion and martyrdom, Greco-Roman imagery of crucifixion and related punishments, Christian iconography of the crucifixion of Jesus, and the later history of the punishment. The last sections of this article then turn to understandings of Jesus’ crucifixion in the New Testament and other early Christian literature.

The religion of the first ages: primitivism and the primitive Church

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert G. Ingram
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Church Of England ◽  
Fourth Century ◽  
North African ◽  
Short History ◽  
Christian Church ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
History Of

This chapter illustrates how the history of the early Christian church was not an abstruse subject during the eighteenth century but a topical one. For the primitive church remained the standard for both orthodoxy and orthopraxis well into the eighteenth century. This chapter demonstrates how that was the case by focusing especially on two pieces by Zachary Grey — his Examination of the fourteenth chapter of Sir Isaac Newton’s observations upon the prophecies of Daniel (1736) and his Short history of the Donatists (1741). Grey’s engagement with Netwon’s work on prophecy centred osn Newton’s treatment of saints and of God’s nature. In writing about these subjects, Newton had aimed to show that the post-fourth-century church was infested with theological impurities; Grey’s rejoinder aimed to show that the eighteenth-century Church of England understood both the saints and God’s nature in a primitively pure way. Grey’s treatment of the ancient Donatist heresy similarly related to contemporary concerns. For he tried to show that Methodism was not novel but, instead, a revival of an ancient heretical sect which had almost rent asunder the fourth-century North African church.

Review: Michel Foucault, Histoire de la sexualité 4: Les aveux de la chair

2018 ◽  
Vol 35 (7-8) ◽  
pp. 293-311 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stuart Elden
Keyword(s):  
Michel Foucault ◽  
The State ◽  
History Of Sexuality ◽  
Church Fathers ◽  
Christian Church ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
Fourth Volume ◽  
History Of

In February 2018 the fourth volume of Michel Foucault’s History of Sexuality was finally published. Les aveux de la chair [Confessions of the Flesh] was edited by Frédéric Gros, and appeared in the same Gallimard series as Volumes 1, 2 and 3. The book deals with the early Christian Church Fathers of the second to fifth centuries. This essay reviews the book in relation to Foucault’s other work, showing how it sits in sequence with Volumes 2 and 3, but also partly bridges the chronological and conceptual gap to Volume 1. It discusses the state of the manuscript and whether it should have been published, given Foucault’s stipulation of ‘no posthumous publications’. It outlines the contents of the book, which is in three parts, on the formation of a new experience, on virginity and on marriage. There are also some important supplementary materials included. The review discusses how it begins to answer previously unanswered questions about Foucault’s work, and offers some suggestions about how the book might be received and discussed.

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