Exploring Early Christian Identity
edited by Bengt Holmberg
The main point of emphasis in the book is that approaching the Christian movement’s early history through investigating its identity helps us to understand how the followers of Jesus developed from an intra-Jewish messianic renewal movement into a new religion with a major Gentile membership and major differences from its Jewish matrix – all in only a hundred years. Identity is not simply a collection of beliefs that was agreed upon by many first-century Christians. It is embedded, or rather, embodied in real life as participation in the founding myths (narrativized memory of and accepted teaching on Jesus), in cults and rituals as well as in ethical teaching and behavioral norms, crystallized into social relations and institutions. This is a dynamic feedback process, full of conflicts and difficulties, both internal and caused by the surrounding society and culture. The authors explore different aspects of identity, such as how the Gospels’ narrativization of the social memory shapes and is shaped by the identity of the groups from which they emerge, how labels such as Jewish and Christian should and should not be understood, the identity-forming role of behavioral norms in letters, and the interplay between competing leadership ideals and the underlying unity of different Christian groups. They also show that identity formation is not necessarily related to innovation in moral teaching, nor averse to making use of ancient conventions of masculinity with their emphasis on dominance.
Bengt Holmberg: Understanding the First Hundred Years of Christian Identity - Samuel Byrskog: Memory and Identity in the Gospels: A New Perspective - Anders Runesson: The Invention of Christian Identity: Paul, Ignatius, and Theodosius- Rikard Roitto: Behaving like a Christ-Believer. A Cognitive Perspective on Identity and Behavior Norms in the Early Christ-Movement - Mikael Tellbe: The Prototypical Christ-Believer. Early Christian Identity Formation in Ephesus - Runar Thorsteinsson: The Role of Morality in the Rise of Roman Christianity - Fredrik Ivarsson: Christian Identity as True Masculinity - Bengt Holmberg: Early Christian identity - some conclusions
Bengt Holmberg, is professor emeritus at Lund University, Sweden.
- Edited by Bengt Holmberg
Other Titles in this Series
The Future of New Testament Textual Scholarship
From H. C. Hoskier to the Editio Critica Maior and Beyond
Volume 417
Paul’s Anthropology in Context
The Image of God, Assimilation to God, and Tripartite Man in Ancient Judaism, Ancient Philosophy and Early Christianity
Die Septuaginta – Texte, Theologien, Einflüsse
2. Internationale Fachtagung veranstaltet von Septuaginta Deutsch (LXX.D), Wuppertal 23.-27. Juli 2008
Die Septuaginta – Entstehung, Sprache, Geschichte
3. Internationale Fachtagung veranstaltet von Septuaginta Deutsch (LXX.D), Wuppertal 22.-25. Juli 2010
Vermittelte Gegenwart
Konzeptionen der Gottesprasenz von der Zeit des Zweiten Tempels bis Anfang des 2. Jahrhunderts n. Chr.
Volume 367
Der Nous bei Paulus und in seiner Umwelt
Griechisch-römische, frühjüdische und frühchristliche Perspektiven
Kontexte des Johannesevangeliums
Das vierte Evangelium in religions- und traditionsgeschichtlicher Perspektive
Die Evangelien und die Apostelgeschichte
Studien zu ihrer Theologie und zu ihrer Geschichte
Volume 241
Good Works in 1 Peter
Negotiating Social Conflict and Christian Identity in the Greco-Roman World
Volume 337
Similar Books
Apocrypha, Magic, Liturgy
The Multiple Identities of Coptic Prayers in Late Antique and Early Islamic Egypt
Athanasius of Alexandria, Epistula ad episcopos Aegypti et Libyae
Old Slavonic Version and English Translation
Volume 261
Contesting Labeled Identities
The Sociology of Gentilics in Biblical and Northwest Semitic Literature
Cyril of Alexandria’s Christological Exegesis
Explorations of Partitive Exegesis in the Dialogues on the Trinity
Volume 70
Epiphanies of the Divine in the Septuagint and the New Testament
Fifth International Symposium of the Corpus Judaeo-Hellenisticum Novi Testamenti (CJHNT), 14-17 May 2015, Nottingham
Extracanonical Traditions and the Holy Land
Texts, Rituals, and Material Culture in Late Antique Palestine
From Joseph to Jesus
The Joseph Narrative as a Compositional Template from Old Greek Esther to the Gospel of Luke
Volume 125
Nicholas of Lyra’s Commentaries on the Gospels of Matthew and Luke
Franciscan Exegesis in a Time of Crisis
Paradise Lost in Transmission
The Return to Eden in the Apocalypse of Peter within Its Ethiopic and Early Christian Contexts
Punning in Odd or Elegant Constructions in Jeremiah
The Convergence of Linguistics, Rhetoric, and Textuality in the Hebrew Text of Jeremiah
Reformed Covenantal Eudaimonism
Wilhelmus à Brakel (1635–1711) on Highest Good, Virtue, and Law
Volume 87