Maidens, Magic and Martyrs in Early Christianity
Collected Essays I
by Jan N. Bremmer
Hardback (Published)
(July 2017)
ISBN: 9783161544507
6.57 x 9.13 inches
Price: $243.00
In stock
Why did the early followers of Jesus call themselves “Christians”? What was their social and religious capital? Why did Christianity attract both poor widows and wealthy women? What did pagans think of early Christians? Integrating the major apocryphal Acts of the Apostles in the study of Christianity and the ancient world, Jan N. Bremmer illustrates their prominence of women and their, sometimes surprising, usage of magic as well as establishing a new chronology and place of composition for these Acts. He also shows that the early Christian tours of hell derive from both Jewish and Greek models, although they become increasingly Christianised. The author concludes by decoding the intriguing visions in the Passion of Perpetua by placing them in the contemporary world, thereby compelling us to sympathize with the hopes and fears of young Christian martyrs. It is the close attention to both pagan and Christian traditions that make these papers, which have all been updated and some of them revised, an exciting read for scholars and advanced students alike.
Why did the early followers of Jesus call themselves “Christians”? What was their social and religious capital? Why did Christianity attract both poor widows and wealthy women? What did pagans think of early Christians? Integrating the major apocryphal Acts of the Apostles in the study of Christianity and the ancient world, Jan N. Bremmer illustrates their prominence of women and their, sometimes surprising, usage of magic as well as establishing a new chronology and place of composition for these Acts. He also shows that the early Christian tours of hell derive from both Jewish and Greek models, although they become increasingly Christianised. The author concludes by decoding the intriguing visions in the Passion of Perpetua by placing them in the contemporary world, thereby compelling us to sympathize with the hopes and fears of young Christian martyrs. It is the close attention to both pagan and Christian traditions that make these papers, which have all been updated and some of them revised, an exciting read for scholars and advanced students alike.
- By (author) Jan N Bremmer
"The greatest merit of this volume is the author's ability to identify questions for investigation that are not being studied and his juxtapositions of sources (e.g., Christian texts and the Greek Magical Papyri) that are even now only rarely brought into conversation with each other. In this way, Bremmer has undertaken the great and laudable effort of mending the old divide between Classics and Early Christian Studies." --Daniel J. Crosby, Bryn Mawr College, Bryn Mawr Classical Review 2018.06.34
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Other Titles in this Series
Josephus und das Neue Testament
Wechselseitige Wahrnehmungen. II. Internationales Symposium zum Corpus Judaeo-Hellenisticum. 25.-28. Mai 2006, Greifswald
The Tenants in the Vineyard
Ideology, Economics, and Agrarian Conflict in Jewish Palestine
Volume 195
The History of Religions School Today
Essays on the New Testament and Related Ancient Mediterranean Texts
Volume 340
Das Endgericht bei Paulus
Framesemantische und exegetische Studien zur paulinischen Eschatologie und Soterologie
Volume 371
Die Septuaginta – Geschichte, Wirkung, Relevanz
6. Internationale Fachtagung veranstaltet von Septuaginta Deutsch (LXX.D), Wuppertal 21.-24. Juli 2016
The ‘Gospel’ between Emperor and Temple in the Gospel of Mark
A Story of Epoch-Making Proximity to the Divine through Victory and Cult
Volume 505
Das Corpus Johanneum bei Irenaus von Lyon
Studien und Kommentar zum dritten Buch von 'Adversus Haereses'
Volume 189
Persecution, Persuasion and Power
Readiness to Withstand Hardship as a Corroboration of Legitimacy in the New Testament
Volume 270
Rethinking the Ethics of John
"Implicit Ethics" in the Johannine Writings. Kontexte und Normen neutestamentlicher Ethik / Contexts and Norms of New Testament Ethics. Volume III
Volume 291
Glaube
Das Verständnis des Glaubens im frühen Christentum und in seiner jüdischen und hellenistisch-römischen Umwelt
Bibelkritik und Auslegung der Heiligen Schrift
Beitrage zur Geschichte der biblischen Exegese und Hermeneutik
Volume 217
Hebrews as Pseudepigraphon
The History and Significance of the Pauline Attribution of Hebrews
Volume 235
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