Engaging early Christian history
Subtitle: reading Acts in the second century
By: edited by Rubén R. Dupertuis and Todd Penner
Series: BibleWorld; Bible world (London, England)
Publisher: Acumen
Published: 2013
Place of publication: Durham [UK]; Bristol, CT
Language: eng
Number of pages: 274
ISBN-13: 9781844657353
Subjects: Frühchristentum; Study skills; Study and teaching; Bible; Criticism, interpretation; History; Early Christian literature
Other titles: Reading Acts in the second century
Description: This book presents a significant departure for Christian origins studies. The book of Acts has traditionally been situated within a first-century setting, offering an apparently straightforward account of the origins and spread of Christianity. This new study extends scholarly debate beyond the analysis of purely historical debates and concerns to examine the Acts of the Apostles within the context of second-century history and culture. It focuses on the associations between Acts and the diverse contemporaneous texts, writers, and broader cultural phenomena in the second-century world of Christians, Romans, Greeks, and Jews. Analysing the reception of Acts - and of Christian myth-making more generally - the volume explores the second century as a formative epoch for Christian storytelling, historical re-imaginings, and the reconfiguration of religious and social identities.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (pages 225-249) and indexes.
Table of contents: title: Reading Acts in the second century: reflections on method, history, and desire  -- Todd Penner; title: Jerusalem destroyed: the setting of Acts  -- Milton Moreland; title: Acts and the apostles: issues of leadership in the second century  -- Joseph B. Tyson; title: Spec(tac)ular sights: mirroring in/of Acts  -- David M. Reis; title: Acts of ascension: history, exaltation, and ideological legitimation  -- David R. McCabe; title: Time and space travel in Luke-Acts  -- John Moles; title: The complexity of pairing: reading Acts 16 with Plutarch's Parallel lives  -- Marianne Bjelland Kartzow; title: Constructing Paul as a Christian in the Acts of the Apostles  -- Christopher Mount; title: Bold speech, opposition, and philosophical imagery in Acts  -- Rubén R. Dupertuis; title: Among the apologists? Reading Acts with Justin Martyr  -- Andrew Gregory; title: The Second Sophistic and the cultural idealization of Paul in Acts  -- Ryan Carhart; title: Reading Luke-Acts in second-century Alexandria: from Clement to the Shadow of Apollos -- Claire Clivaz.