Since its publication in 2000, The Early Christian World has come to be regarded by scholars, students and the general reader as one of the most informative and accessible works in English on the origins, development, character and major figures of early Christianity. In this new edition, the strengths of the first edition are retained. These include the book’s attractive architecture that initially takes a reader through the context and historical development of early Christianity; the essays in critical areas such as community formation, everyday experience, the intellectual and artistic heritage, and external and internal challenges; and the profiles on the most influential early Christian figures. The book also preserves its strong stress on the social reality of early Christianity and continues its distinctive use of hundreds of illustrations and maps to bring that world to life. Yet the years that have passed since the first edition was published have seen great advances made in our understanding of early Christianity in its world. This new edition fully reflects these developments and provides the reader with authoritative, lively and up-to-date access to the early Christian world. A quarter of the text is entirely new and the remaining essays have all been carefully revised and updated by their authors. Some of the new material relates to Christian culture (including book culture, canonical and non-canonical scriptures, saints and hagiography, and translation across cultures). But there are also new essays on: Jewish and Christian interaction in the early centuries; ritual; the New Testament in Roman Britain; Manichaeism; Pachomius the Great and Gregory of Nyssa. This new edition will serve its readers for many years to come.
Dedication
List of Illustrations
Preface
List of Abbreviations
I THE CONTEXT
1. The Mediterranean Context of Early Christianity
Philip F. Esler
2. Emperors, Armies and Bureaucrats 68-430 CE
Jill Harries
3. Greek and Roman Philosophy and Religion
Luther Martin
4.Jewish Tradition and Culture
James Aitken
II CHRISTIAN ORIGINS AND DEVELOPMENT
5. Jesus in His World
Douglas Oakman
6.Early Jewish Christianity
Edwin Broadhead
7.Paul and the Development of Gentile Christianity
Todd Klutz
8.The Jesus Tradition: The Gospel Writers’ Strategies of Persuasion
Richard Rohrbaugh
9.The Second and Third Centuries
Jeffrey S. Siker
10.From Constantine to Theodosius and Beyond
Bill Leadbetter
11.Jewish and Christian Interaction from the First to the Fifth
Centuries
Anders Runesson
III COMMUNITY FORMATION AND MAINTENANCE
12.Mission and Expansion
Thomas Finn
13.The Development of Office in the Early Church
Mark Edwards
14.Christian Regional Diversity
David Taylor
15.Monasticism
Columba Stewart OSB
IV EVERYDAY CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE
16.Reading the New Testament in Roman Britain
Richard Cleaves
17.Sex and Sexual Renunciation I
Teresa Shaw
18.Sex and Sexual Renunciation II: Developments in Research since
2000
Elizabeth Castelli
19.Women, Children and House Churches
Mona LaFosse
20.Worship, Practice and Belief
Max Johnson
21.Ritual and the Rise of the Early Christian Movement
Risto Uro
22.Communication and Travel
Blake Leyerle
V CHRISTIAN CULTURE
23.Christian Realia: Books, Papyri and Artefacts
Giovanni Bazzana
24.Scriptures in Early Christianity
Outi Lehtipuu and Hanne von Weissenberg
25.Saints and Hagiography
Mark Humphries
26.Translation and Communication across Languages
Malcolm Choat
VI THE INTELLECTUAL HERITAGE
27.The Apostolic Fathers
Carolyn Osiek
28.The Apologists
Anders-Christian Jacobsen
29.Early Theologians
Gerald Bray
30.Later Theologians of the Greek East
Andrew Louth
31.Later Theologians of the West
Ivor Davidson
32.Creeds, Councils and Doctrinal Development
Piotr Ashwin-Siejkowski
33. Biblical Interpretation
Oskar Skarsaune
VII THE ARTISTIC HERITAGE
34.Early Christian Architecture: The First Five Centures
L. Michael White
35. Art
Robin Jensen
36.Music
John Arthur Smith
37.Imaginative Literature
Richard Bauckham
VIII EXTERNAL CHALLENGES
38.Political Oppression and Martyrdom
Candida R. Moss
39. Graeco-Roman Philosophical Opposition
Michael Simmons
40. Popular Graeco-Roman Responses to Christianity
Craig de Vos
IX INTERNAL CHALLENGES
41. Internal Renewal and Dissent in the Early Christian World
Sheila McGinn
42. Gnosticism
Alistair Logan
43. Montanism
Christine Trevett
44. Donatism
Jakob Engberg
45. Arianism
David Rankin
46. Manichaeism
Jason BeDuhn
X PROFILES
47. Origen
Thomas Scheck
48. Tertullian
Geoffrey D. Dunn
49. Perpetua and Felicitas
Shira L. Lander and Ross S. Kraemer
50. Constantine
Bill Leadbetter
51. Antony the Great
Columba Stewart OSB
52. Pachomius the Great
James E. Goehring
53. Athanasius
David Gwynn
54. John Chrysostom
Wendy Mayer and Pauline Allen
55. Gregory of Nyssa
Elena Ene D-Vasilescu
56. Jerome
Dennis Brown
57. Ambrose
Ivor Davidson
58. Augustine
Carol Harrison
59. Ephrem the Syrian
Kathleen McVey
60. Julian the Apostate
Biography
Philip F. Esler is the Portland Chair in New Testament Studies and Director of the International Centre for Biblical Interpretation in the University of Gloucestershire, Cheltenham, UK. His previous positions include Chief Executive of the Arts and Humanities Research Council (2005-2009) and Principal of St Mary’s University College, Twickenham, London (2010-2013). His research focus lies primarily in the social-scientific of biblical and extra-biblical texts and ancient legal papyri, and he also writes on the Bible and the visual arts and on New Testament theology. His latest monograph is Babatha’s Orchard: The Yadin Papyri and An Ancient Jewish Family Tale Retold (2017) and before that he published Sex, Wives and Warriors: Reading the Old Testament With Its Ancient Audience (2011).
"This new edition is a goldmine of up-to-date information for anyone interested in the development of early Christianity. The contributors represent an international collection of top-flight scholars, and the range of topics covered is expansive; yet the essays are written in an accessible style and could certainly be used in a classroom setting at the undergraduate and graduate levels. Of particular note is the way in which the essays situate Christianity within its broader cultural contexts, rather than treating it as if it developed in a 'holy vacuum'. You will want this book on your shelf as a standard reference work for the study of early Christianity."
- Professor David Eastman, Ohio Wesleyan University, USA"The second edition of this valuable collection will be welcomed even by those who already own the first edition. This thoroughly updated edition preserves the structure and comprehensiveness of the first, as well as its important focus on social history and everyday experience. It also adds both depth and breadth through the inclusion of new topics and current approaches. This volume will be a boon to instructors looking for current and provocative readings to challenge their students, and indeed to anyone interested in early Christianity in its historical, social and cultural contexts."
- Professor Adele Reinhartz, University of Ottawa, Canada"The second edition of the Early Christian World successfully manages a difficult task. It not only updates the existing contributions in the first edition of this highly useful tool for studying early Christianity, it also includes new directions in scholarship. Thus it promises to be an valuable part of the libraries of students, academics, and any reader interested in the first five centuries of Christianity alike."
- Dr Jutta Leonhardt-Balzer, University of Aberdeen, UK"The Early Christian World is and remains an enormously useful reference work. It is highly accessible to specialist and non-specialist readers, with essays written in an accessible style, rich illustrations, indices of biblical, classical, Jewish references and patristic references as well as a subject index. These indices make it somewhat easier to navigate through its almost 1200 pages of text. Each article is followed by an extensive and up-to-date bibliography, encouraging and facilitating further research."
- Dr Ine Jacobs, University of Oxford, UK, Bryn Mawr Classical Review 2018"The analysis demonstrates that by silencing slaves and using a rhetoric of violence, the authors of these texts contributed to the construction of myths in which slaves functioned as a useful trope to support the combined power of religion and empire."
"This new edition fully reflects these developments and provides the reader with authoritative, lively, and up-to-date access to the early Christian world. A quarter of the text is entirely new and the remaining essays have all been carefully revised and updated by their authors.
- A Journal of Bible and Theology
This book gives a detailed view on Early Christianity from many different angles which are indispensable in studying and comprehending the genesis and further developments in Late Antiquity. "
- Mark Beumer, Kleio-Historia