Doing things with words in the first Christian century
By: F. Gerald Downing.
Series: Journal for the study of the New Testament.; 200
Publisher: Sheffield Academic Press
Published: 2000
Place of publication: Sheffield
Language: eng
Number of pages: 268
Subjects: Bible. N.T. Gospels -- Criticism, interpretation, etc.; Christian life -- History -- Early church, ca. 30-600.
Description: Although its religious heritage was that of a variegated Judaism, the tiny early Christian movement was nevertheless much more complexly and richly linked with the Graeco-Roman world in which it came to birth than is usually allowed for. In particular, 'ordinary' people were capable of a sophisticated use of words that can be detected also in the New Testament writings. But the use of words in Graeco-Roman times was often very different from what we suppose, and this collection of studies attempts to identify some of the anachronisms that still pervade even the best of modern scholarship.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. [236]-249) and indexes.