Thomasine Traditions in Antiquity

Thomasine Traditions in Antiquity PDF Author: Jon Ma. Asgeirsson
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9047417860
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 327

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Book Description
This volume is a selection of papers presented to the Society of Biblical Literature Thomasine Traditions Group from 1996 to 2001. The papers focus on the early Christian writings attributed to the apostle Thomas with particular emphasis on the Gospel of Thomas. The collection offers an extensive discussion of the social and cultural world of the gospel, particularly examining its relationship to other contemporary Christian writings and Graeco-Roman literature. The essays give a helpful survey of recent developments and discussions in the field of Thomasine studies. Among many topics dealt with in the volume are the issue of Thomas’ “community,” the gospel’s enigmatic exhortation to become “passers-by,” and Thomas’ relation to the Hebrew epic, Platonic philosophic traditions, Valentinus, as well as to early gospel harmonies. The volume also proposes a hypothesis of the earliest layer of the Thomasine traditions and presents analyses of Thomas’ argumentative rhetology and portrait of Jesus. One essay focuses on the role of the apostle Thomas in the Acts of Thomas. Thomasine Traditions in Antiquity will be a valuable tool for all those interested in Nag Hammadi Studies, Gnosticism, Early Christianity and the history of religion.

Thomasine Traditions in Antiquity

Thomasine Traditions in Antiquity PDF Author: Jon Ma. Asgeirsson
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9047417860
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 327

Get Book Here

Book Description
This volume is a selection of papers presented to the Society of Biblical Literature Thomasine Traditions Group from 1996 to 2001. The papers focus on the early Christian writings attributed to the apostle Thomas with particular emphasis on the Gospel of Thomas. The collection offers an extensive discussion of the social and cultural world of the gospel, particularly examining its relationship to other contemporary Christian writings and Graeco-Roman literature. The essays give a helpful survey of recent developments and discussions in the field of Thomasine studies. Among many topics dealt with in the volume are the issue of Thomas’ “community,” the gospel’s enigmatic exhortation to become “passers-by,” and Thomas’ relation to the Hebrew epic, Platonic philosophic traditions, Valentinus, as well as to early gospel harmonies. The volume also proposes a hypothesis of the earliest layer of the Thomasine traditions and presents analyses of Thomas’ argumentative rhetology and portrait of Jesus. One essay focuses on the role of the apostle Thomas in the Acts of Thomas. Thomasine Traditions in Antiquity will be a valuable tool for all those interested in Nag Hammadi Studies, Gnosticism, Early Christianity and the history of religion.

Thomasine Traditions in Antiquity

Thomasine Traditions in Antiquity PDF Author: Jón Ma. Ásgeirsson
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 336

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Book Description
This volume is a selection of papers presented to the Society of Biblical Literature from 1996 to 2001. They focus on the early Christian writings attributed to the apostle Thomas with particular emphasis on the Gospel of Thomas and offer an indepth discussion of the social and cultural world of the gospel.

Explaining Christian Origins and Early Judaism

Explaining Christian Origins and Early Judaism PDF Author: Petri Luomanen
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004163298
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 337

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Book Description
The contributors of the volume draw on cognitive and social science, suggesting fresh ways of approaching Christian origins and early Judaism. Its multidisciplinary and radically new perspective to its subject matter is highly relevant for all scholars of religion.

Gnostic Religion in Antiquity

Gnostic Religion in Antiquity PDF Author: R. van den Broek
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107031370
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 267

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Book Description
An examination of Gnostic religion in Late Antiquity within its historical and religious context, using Greek, Latin and Coptic sources.

The Words of Jesus in the Gospel of Thomas

The Words of Jesus in the Gospel of Thomas PDF Author: David W. Kim
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000377628
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 313

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Book Description
This book offers a detailed analysis of the Gospel of Thomas in its historic and literary context, providing a new understanding of the genesis of the Jesus tradition. Discovered in the twentieth century, the non-canonical Gospel of Thomas is an important early text whose origins and place in the history of Christianity continue to be subjects of debate. Aiming to relocate the Thomasine community in the wider context of early Christianity, this study considers the Gospel of Thomas as a bridge between the oral and literary phases of the Christian movement. It will therefore, be useful for Religion scholars working on Biblical studies, Coptic codices, gnosticism and early Christianity.

After the New Testament

After the New Testament PDF Author: Bart D. Ehrman
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN:
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 488

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Book Description
The remarkable diversity of Christianity during the formative years of the first three centuries has become a plain, even natural, "fact" for most ancient historians. However, until now there has been no source book of primary texts that reveals the many varieties of Christian beliefs, practices, ethics, experiences, confrontations, and self-understandings. To help readers recognize and experience the rich diversity of the early Christian movement, After the New Testament provides a wide range of texts, both "orthodox" and "heterodox". It includes such works as the Apostolic Fathers, the writings of Nag Hammadi, early pseudepigrapha, martyrologies, anti-Jewish tractates, heresiologies, canon lists, church orders, Liturgical texts, and theological treatises. In addition, rather than including only fragments of texts, this collection provides substantial sections -- entire documents wherever possible -- organized under social and historical rubrics.

The Gnostic New Age

The Gnostic New Age PDF Author: April D. DeConick
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231542046
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 515

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Book Description
Gnosticism is a countercultural spirituality that forever changed the practice of Christianity. Before it emerged in the second century, passage to the afterlife required obedience to God and king. Gnosticism proposed that human beings were manifestations of the divine, unsettling the hierarchical foundations of the ancient world. Subversive and revolutionary, Gnostics taught that prayer and mediation could bring human beings into an ecstatic spiritual union with a transcendent deity. This mystical strain affected not just Christianity but many other religions, and it characterizes our understanding of the purpose and meaning of religion today. In The Gnostic New Age, April D. DeConick recovers this vibrant underground history to prove that Gnosticism was not suppressed or defeated by the Catholic Church long ago, nor was the movement a fabrication to justify the violent repression of alternative forms of Christianity. Gnosticism alleviated human suffering, soothing feelings of existential brokenness and alienation through the promise of renewal as God. DeConick begins in ancient Egypt and follows with the rise of Gnosticism in the Middle Ages, the advent of theosophy and other occult movements in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and contemporary New Age spiritual philosophies. As these theories find expression in science-fiction and fantasy films, DeConick sees evidence of Gnosticism's next incarnation. Her work emphasizes the universal, countercultural appeal of a movement that embodies much more than a simple challenge to religious authority.

Early Church Understandings of Jesus as the Female Divine

Early Church Understandings of Jesus as the Female Divine PDF Author: Sally Douglas
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 0567668339
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 242

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Book Description
Central to debates about Jesus is the issue of whether he uniquely embodies the divine. While this discussion continues unabated, both those who affirm and those who dismiss, Jesus' divinity regularly eclipse the reality that in many of the earliest strands of the Christian tradition when Jesus' divinity is proclaimed, Jesus is imaged as the female divine. Sally Douglas investigates these early texts, excavates the motivations for imaging Jesus as Woman Wisdom and the complex reasons that this began to be suppressed in the 2nd and 3rd centuries. The work concludes with an exploration of the powerful implications of engaging with the ancient proclamation of Jesus-Woman Wisdom in contemporary context.

Jesus and the Manuscripts

Jesus and the Manuscripts PDF Author: Craig A. Evans
Publisher: Hendrickson Publishers
ISBN: 1683073606
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 647

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Book Description
Jesus and the Manuscripts, by popular author and Bible scholar Craig A. Evans, introduces readers to the diversity and complexity of the ancient literature that records the words and deeds of Jesus. This diverse literature includes the familiar Gospels of the New Testament, the much less familiar literature of the Rabbis and of the Qur’an, and the extracanonical narratives and brief snippets of material found in fragments and inscriptions. This book critically analyzes important texts and quotations in their original languages and engages the current scholarly discussion. Evans argues that the Gospel of Thomas is not early or independent of the New Testament Gospels but that it should be dated to the late second century. He also argues that Secret Mark, like the recently published Gospel of Jesus’ Wife, is probably a modern forgery. Of special interest is the question of how long the autographs of New Testament writings remained in circulation. Evans argues that the evidence suggests that most of these autographs remained available for copying and study for more than one hundred years and thus stabilized the text. Key points and features:Written by popular author and Bible scholar Craig A. EvansIncludes 20+ pages of high-quality color photosWalks readers through the various works of ancient literature, both biblical and non-biblical, that mention JesusCritically analyzes important texts and quotations in their original languages and engages the current scholarly discussion

Mind, Morality and Magic

Mind, Morality and Magic PDF Author: Istvan Czachesz
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317544412
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 325

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Book Description
The cognitive science of religion that has emerged over the last twenty years is a multidisciplinary field that often challenges established theories in anthropology and comparative religion. This new approach raises many questions for biblical studies as well. What are the cross-cultural cognitive mechanisms which explain the transmission of biblical texts? How did the local and particular cultural traditions of ancient Israel and early Christianity develop? What does the embodied and socially embedded nature of the human mind imply for the exegesis of biblical texts? "Mind, Morality and Magic" draws on a range of approaches to the study of the human mind - including memory studies, computer modeling, cognitive theories of ritual, social cognition, evolutionary psychology, biology of emotions, and research on religious experience. The volume explores how cognitive approaches to religion can shed light on classical concerns in biblical scholarship - such as the transmission of traditions, ritual and magic, and ethics - as well as uncover new questions and offer new methodologies.