School of Theology and Seminary Faculty Books
Reading in Christian Communities : Essays on Interpretation in the Early Church
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Description
The essays in this book honor and extend the work of Rowan A. Greer, Walter H. Gray Professor Emeritus of Anglican Studies at Yale University Divinity School, by exploring the connections between textual interpretation and the formation of religious identity. A diverse and prestigious group of biblical scholars, church historians, and theologians studies the role that scripture plays in the creation and maintenance of faith communities and the ways that communal locations in turn shape the interpretation of scripture.
The first part of the book examines specific examples of ancient biblical interpretation as a means of creating, maintaining, and challenging Christian identity in the pluralistic ancient world. Authors study interpretation in the Martyrdom of Polycarp, the Physiologus, Gnostic literature, the fifth-century mosaic of the Church of Hosios David in Thessaloniki, and in the works of Irenaeus, Origen, Augustine, John Chrysostom, and Porphyry of Tyre. Reading scripture emerges as a strategy for locating the reader and his or her community with respect to other Christians, Jews, and pagans. Part 2 of the volume considers the general problem of interpretation within Christian communities, whether ancient or modern, as they face the task of maintaining a coherent identity.
Publisher’s Website
ISBN
9780268031657 9780268040178
Publication Date
2002
Publisher
University of Notre Dame Press
City
Notre Dame, IN
Disciplines
Biblical Studies | History of Christianity | Religion
Recommended Citation
Bobertz, Charles A., David Brakke, and Rowan A. Greer. Reading in Christian Communities: Essays on Interpretation in the Early Church. Notre Dame, Ind: University of Notre Dame Press, 2002.
Comments
Edited by Charles A. Bobertz and David Brakke