Modelling Early Christianity: Social-Scientific Studies of the N

Taylor & Francis

Explores the fascinating and foreign social context of first century Palestine and the Greco-Roman East, in which the Chrstian faith was first proclaimed and the New Testament written, so enabling a better understanding of the texts. > \nModelling Early Christianity explores the intriguing foreign social context of first century Palestine and the Greco-Roman East, in which the Christian faith was first proclaimed and the New Testament documents were written. It demonstrates that a sophisticated analysis of the context is essential in order to understand the original meaning of the texts.\nThe contributors examine social themes such as early Christian group formation, the centrality of kinship and honour and the economic setting. They offer a wealth of novel and socially realistic interpretations which make sense of the texts. At the same time, Modelling Early Christianity contains significant new ideas on the relationship between social-scientific and literary-critical analysis, ts