Ethnicity and Early Christianity: New Approaches to Religious Kinship and Community
This article outlines how recent scholarly interventions about notions of race, ethnicity and nation in the ancient Mediterranean world have impacted the study of early Christianity. Contrary to the long-held proposition that Christianity was supra-ethnic, a slate of recent publications has demonstr...
| Published in: | Currents in biblical research |
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| Main Author: | |
| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
|
| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
Sage
[2018]
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| In: |
Currents in biblical research
|
| Standardized Subjects / Keyword chains: | B
Church
/ Ethnicity
/ Genealogy
/ Kinship
/ Universalism
/ Race
/ Nationality
/ Community
|
| RelBib Classification: | HC New Testament KAB Church history 30-500; early Christianity |
| Further subjects: | B
Greekness
B Ethnicity B Genealogy B UNIVERSALISM (Theology) B Early Christianity B nationality / nation B Ethnic Reasoning B Race B Universalism B Kinship B Church History Primitive & early church, ca. 30-600 B Community |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Summary: | This article outlines how recent scholarly interventions about notions of race, ethnicity and nation in the ancient Mediterranean world have impacted the study of early Christianity. Contrary to the long-held proposition that Christianity was supra-ethnic, a slate of recent publications has demonstrated how early Christian authors thought in explicitly ethnic terms and developed their own ethnic discourse even as they positioned Christianity as a universal religion. Universalizing ambitions and ethnic reasoning were part and parcel of a larger sacred history of Christian triumphalism. Christian thinkers were keen to make claims about kinship, descent, blood, customs and habits to enumerate what it meant to be a Christian and belong to a Christian community. The narrative that Christians developed about themselves was very much an ethnic history, one in which human difference and diversity was made to conform to the theological and ideological interests of early Christian thinkers. |
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| ISSN: | 1745-5200 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Currents in biblical research
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1177/1476993X17743454 |