Bonds and Boundaries among the Early Churches
Community Maintenance in the Letter of James and the Didache
By (author) Chun Ling Yu
This book explores the group conflicts within early Christian communities reflected in the letter of James and the Didache, and then analyzes the community maintenance strategies of these two writings. With the tools from social science, it shows that community conflict is an important background for biblical interpretation and the u
This book is a text-based study on social dynamics of early Christian communities. By combining modern social-scientific theories with careful exegesis, it investigates the tensions, especially intra-communal tensions that confronted early communities of Jesus-followers. It contributes to both biblical studies and the understanding of the early church by showing that two early Christian compositions, the letter of James and the Didache reflect similar discords among early Christians, and they show similar concerns for community solidarity. It also offers an analysis of their community maintenance strategies with the frameworks of social identity theory and conflict theories. Through observing both similarities and differences between James and the Didache, it highlights the different perspectives and attitudes of the two compositions on group conflicts and their resolution. This study connects the early Christian communities with the almost-universal human experience of conflict. The application of various social-scientific theories and models enhances the interpretation of the letter of James and the Didache, and provides new insights into the significance of these two writings for the early church as well as for the Christian communities today.
- By (author) Chun Ling Yu
Other Titles in this Series
Analogical Identities
The Creation of the Christian Self: Volume 2: Self-catholicization, Meta-narcissism, and Christian Theology
Volume 57
Seeking the Face of God
The Reception of Augustine in the Mystical Thought of Bernard of Clairvaux and William of St Thierry
Volume 11
My God, my God why have you abandoned me
The experience of God's withdrawal in late antique exegesis, Christology and ascetic literature
Volume 43
The ‘Universal Prayer’ in the Ancient Latin Liturgies. Patristic Evidence and Liturgical Texts
Volume 56
Inventio meditativa
The Rhetoric and Hermeneutics of Meditation in Hugh of Saint-Victor, Guigo II, and Bonaventure of Bagnoregio
Volume 58
Analogical Identities
The Creation of the Christian Self: Beyond Spirituality and Mysticism in the Patristic Era
Volume 28
Friendship as Ecclesial Binding
A Reading of St. Augustine's Theology of Friendship from his In Iohannis Euangelium Tractatus
Volume 48
The Christian Topography of Early Islamic Jerusalem
The Evidence of Willibald of Eichstatt (700-787 CE)
Volume 2
Removing Masculine Layers to Reveal a Holy Womanhood
The Female Transvestite Monks of Late Antique Eastern Christianity
Volume 13
‘The Letter Killeth’
Redeeming Time in Augustine's Understanding of the Authority of Scripture
Volume 51
Saints and Sinners in Early Christian Ireland
Moral Theology in the Lives of Saints Brigit and Columba
Volume 3
Through the Bone and Marrow
Re-examining Theological Encounters with Dance in Medieval Europe
Volume 45
‘The loss of a minute is just so much loss of life’
Edward Robinson and Eli Smith in the Holy Land
Volume 39
The Spirit, the World and the Trinity
Origen's and Augustine's Understanding of the Gospel of John
Volume 40
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Ars Prophetica
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