Author: John Granger CookPublisher:
ISBN:
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 414
Book Description
Publisher Description
The Interpretation of the New Testament in Greco-Roman Paganism
Author: John Granger CookPublisher:
ISBN:
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 414
Book Description
Publisher Description
The Interpretation of the Old Testament in Greco-Roman Paganism
Author: John Granger CookPublisher: Mohr Siebeck
ISBN: 9783161484742
Category : Bible
Languages : en
Pages : 424
Book Description
According to the available evidence not many pagans knew the Greek Bible (Septuagint) before the advent of Christianity. Those pagans who later became aware of Christian texts were among the first, according to the surviving data, to seriously explore the Septuagint. They found the Bible to be difficult reading. The pagans who reacted to biblical texts include Celsus (II C.E.), Porphyry (III C.E.), and Julian the Apostate (IV C.E.). These authors thought that if they could refute one of the primary foundations of Christianity, namely its use or interpretation of the Septuagint, then the new religion would perhaps crumble. John Granger Cook analyzes these pagans' voice and elaborates on its importance, since it shows how Septuagint texts appeared in the eyes of Greco-Roman intellectuals. Theirs was not an abstract interest, however, because they knew that Christianity posed a grave danger to some of their dearest beliefs, self-understanding, and way of life.
The Greco-Roman World of the New Testament Era
Author: James S. JeffersPublisher: InterVarsity Press
ISBN: 0830878025
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 356
Book Description
James S. Jeffers provides an informative tour of the various facets of the Roman world--class and status, family and community, work and leisure, religion and organization, city and country, law and government, death and taxes, and the events of Roman history.
Among the Gentiles
Author: Luke Timothy JohnsonPublisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300156499
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 480
Book Description
Presenting a fresh inquiry into early Christianity and Greco-Roman paganism, Luke Timothy Johnson begins with a broad definition of religion as a way of life organized around convictions and experiences concerning ultimate power.
The New Testament and Early Christian Literature in Greco-Roman Context
Author: David Edward AunePublisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004143041
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 495
Book Description
This volume is a collection of newly published scholarly studies honoring Prof.Dr. David. E. Aune on his 65th birthday. These groundbreaking studies written by prominent international scholars investigate a range of topics in the New Testament and early Christian literature with insights drawn from Greco-Roman culture and Hellenistic Judaism.
New Testament Christianity in the Roman World
Author: Harry O. MaierPublisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 019026442X
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 283
Book Description
What did it mean to be a Christian in the Roman Empire? In one of the inaugural titles of Oxford's new Essentials in Biblical Studies series, Harry O. Maier considers the multilayered social contexts that shaped the authors and audiences of the New Testament. Beginning with the cosmos and the gods, Maier presents concentric realms of influence on the new religious movement of Christ-followers. The next is that of the empire itself and the sway the cult of the emperor held over believers of a single deity. Within the empire, early Christianity developed mostly in cities, the shape of which often influenced the form of belief. The family stood as the social unit in which daily expression of belief was most clearly on view and, finally, Maier examines the role of personal and individual adherence to the religion in the shaping of the Christian experience in the Roman world. In all of these various realms, concepts of sacrifice, belief, patronage, poverty, Jewishness, integration into city life, and the social constitution of identity are explored as important facets of early Christianity as a lived religion. Maier encourages readers to think of early Christianity not simply as an abstract and disconnected set of beliefs and practices, but as made up of a host of social interactions and pluralisms. Religion thus ceases to exist as a single identity, and acts instead as a sphere in which myriad identities co-exist.
The Christians as the Romans Saw Them
Author: Robert Louis WilkenPublisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 9780300098396
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 244
Book Description
This book offers an engrossing portrayal of the early years of the Christian movement from the perspective of the Romans.
Christianity in the Greco-Roman World
Author: Moyer V. HubbardPublisher: Baker Academic
ISBN: 1441237097
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 381
Book Description
Background becomes foreground in Moyer Hubbard's creative introduction to the social and historical setting for the letters of the Apostle Paul to churches in Asia Minor and Europe. Hubbard begins each major section with a brief narrative featuring a fictional character in one of the great cities of that era. Then he elaborates on various aspects of the cultural setting related to each particular vignette, discussing the implications of those venues for understanding Paul's letters and applying their message to our lives today. Addressing a wide array of cultural and traditional issues, Hubbard discusses: • religion and superstition • education, philosophy, and oratory • urban society • households and family life in the Greco-Roman world This work is based on the premise that the better one understands the historical and social context in which the New Testament (and Paul's letters) was written, the better one will understand the writings of the New Testament themselves. Passages become clearer, metaphors deciphered, and images sharpened. Teachers, students, and laypeople alike will appreciate Hubbard's unique, illuminating, and well-researched approach to the world of the early church.
The New Testament in Its Literary Environment
Author: David Edward AunePublisher: James Clarke & Co.
ISBN: 9780227679104
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 270
Book Description
A study of the relationship between the New Testament writings and other literature of late antiquity. This comprehensive introduction identifies and describes the major literary genres and forms found in the New Testament and Early Christian non-canonical literature. Comparing them with those prevalent in Judaism and Hellenism, it sheds light on the conventions that the New Testament writers chose to follow.
New Testament Interpretation Through Rhetorical Criticism
Author: George A. KennedyPublisher: UNC Press Books
ISBN: 1469616254
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 182
Book Description
New Testament Interpretation through Rhetorical Criticism provides readers of the Bible with an important tool for understanding the Scriptures. Based on the theory and practice of Greek rhetoric in the New Testament, George Kennedy's approach acknowledges that New Testament writers wrote to persuade an audience of the truth of their messages. These writers employed rhetorical conventions that were widely known and imitated in the society of the times. Sometimes confirming but often challenging common interpretations of texts, this is the first systematic study of the rhetorical composition of the New Testament. As a complement to form criticism, historical criticism, and other methods of biblical analysis, rhetorical criticism focuses on the text as we have it and seeks to discover the basis of its powerful appeal and the intent of its authors. Kennedy shows that biblical writers employed both "external" modes of persuasion, such as scriptural authority, the evidence of miracles, and the testimony of witnesses, and "internal" methods, such as ethos (authority and character of the speaker), pathos (emotional appeal to the audience), and logos (deductive and inductive argument in the text). In the opening chapter Kennedy presents a survey of how rhetoric was taught in the New Testament period and outlines a rigorous method of rhetorical criticism that involves a series of steps. He provides in succeeding chapters examples of rhetorical analysis, looking closely at the Sermon on the Mount, the Sermon on the Plain, Jesus' farewell to the disciples in John's Gospel, the distinctive rhetoric of Jesus, the speeches in Acts, and the approach of Saint Paul in Second Corinthians, Thessalonians, Galatians, and Romans.