Women and Knowledge in Early Christianity

Women and Knowledge in Early Christianity
Author: Ulla Tervahauta
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 389
Release: 2017-10-17
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9004344934

Women and Knowledge in Early Christianity offers a collection of essays that deal with perceptions of wisdom, femaleness, and their interconnections in a wide range of ancient sources, including papyri, Nag Hammadi documents, heresiological accounts and monastic literature.

Mary and Early Christian Women

Mary and Early Christian Women
Author: Ally Kateusz
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 305
Release: 2019-02-18
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 3030111113

This book is open access under a CC BY-NC-ND license. This book reveals exciting early Christian evidence that Mary was remembered as a powerful role model for women leaders—women apostles, baptizers, and presiders at the ritual meal. Early Christian art portrays Mary and other women clergy serving as deacon, presbyter/priest, and bishop. In addition, the two oldest surviving artifacts to depict people at an altar table inside a real church depict women and men in a gender-parallel liturgy inside two of the most important churches in Christendom—Old Saint Peter’s Basilica in Rome and the second Hagia Sophia in Constantinople. Dr. Kateusz’s research brings to light centuries of censorship, both ancient and modern, and debunks the modern imagination that from the beginning only men were apostles and clergy.

Christian Women in the Patristic World

Christian Women in the Patristic World
Author: Lynn H. Cohick
Publisher: Baker Academic
Total Pages: 327
Release: 2017-10-03
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1493410210

From facing wild beasts in the arena to governing the Roman Empire, Christian women--as preachers and philosophers, martyrs and empresses, virgins and mothers--influenced the shape of the church in its formative centuries. This book provides in a single volume a nearly complete compendium of extant evidence about Christian women in the second through fifth centuries. It highlights the social and theological contributions they made to shaping early Christian beliefs and practices, integrating their influence into the history of the patristic church and showing how their achievements can be edifying for contemporary Christians.

Women in the World of the Earliest Christians

Women in the World of the Earliest Christians
Author: Lynn Cohick
Publisher: Baker Academic
Total Pages: 352
Release: 2009-11-01
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1441207996

Lynn Cohick provides an accurate and fulsome picture of the earliest Christian women by examining a wide variety of first-century Jewish and Greco-Roman documents that illuminate their lives. She organizes the book around three major spheres of life: family, religious community, and society in general. Cohick shows that although women during this period were active at all levels within their religious communities, their influence was not always identified by leadership titles nor did their gender always determine their level of participation. The book corrects our understanding of early Christian women by offering an authentic and descriptive historical picture of their lives. Includes black-and-white illustrations from the ancient world.

From Jesus to Christ

From Jesus to Christ
Author: Paula Fredriksen
Publisher: Yale University Press
Total Pages: 286
Release: 2008-10-01
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0300164106

"Magisterial. . . . A learned, brilliant and enjoyable study."—Géza Vermès, Times Literary Supplement In this exciting book, Paula Fredriksen explains the variety of New Testament images of Jesus by exploring the ways that the new Christian communities interpreted his mission and message in light of the delay of the Kingdom he had preached. This edition includes an introduction reviews the most recent scholarship on Jesus and its implications for both history and theology. "Brilliant and lucidly written, full of original and fascinating insights."—Reginald H. Fuller, Journal of the American Academy of Religion "This is a first-rate work of a first-rate historian."—James D. Tabor, Journal of Religion "Fredriksen confronts her documents—principally the writings of the New Testament—as an archaeologist would an especially rich complex site. With great care she distinguishes the literary images from historical fact. As she does so, she explains the images of Jesus in terms of the strategies and purposes of the writers Paul, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John."—Thomas D’Evelyn, Christian Science Monitor

Band of Angels

Band of Angels
Author: Kate Cooper
Publisher: Abrams
Total Pages: 330
Release: 2013-09-26
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1468309366

“A distinguished ancient historian’s elegant study of the extraordinary women who helped lay the foundations of the early Christian church” (Kirkus Reviews). According to most recorded history, women in the ancient world lived invisibly. In Band of Angels, historian Kate Cooper has pieced together their story from the few contemporary accounts that have survived. Through painstaking detective work, she renders both the past and the present in a new light. Band of Angels tells the remarkable story of how a new understanding of relationships took root in the ancient world. Women from all walks of life played an invaluable role in Christianity's rapid expansion. Their story is a testament to what unseen people can achieve, and how the power of ideas can change the world, on household at a time.

Holy Misogyny

Holy Misogyny
Author: April D. DeConick
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
Total Pages: 259
Release: 2011-09-22
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1441124020

In Holy Misogyny, bible scholar April DeConick wants real answers to the questions that are rarely whispered from the pulpits of the contemporary Christian churches. Why is God male? Why are women associated with sin? Why can't women be priests? Drawing on her extensive knowledge of the early Christian literature, she seeks to understand the conflicts over sex and gender in the early church-what they were and what was at stake. She explains how these ancient conflicts have shaped contemporary Christianity and its promotion of male exclusivity and superiority in terms of God, church leadership, and the bed. DeConick's detective work uncovers old aspects of Christianity before later doctrines and dogmas were imposed upon the churches, and the earlier teachings about the female were distorted. Holy Misogyny shows how the female was systematically erased from the Christian tradition, and why. She concludes that the distortion and erasure of the female is the result of ancient misogyny made divine writ, a holy misogyny that remains with us today.

When Women Were Priests

When Women Were Priests
Author: Karen J. Torjesen
Publisher: Harper Collins
Total Pages: 292
Release: 1995-04-15
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0060686618

This landmark book reveals not only that women were priests, bishops, and prophets in early Christianity, but also how and why they were then suppressed.

Women and Christian Origins

Women and Christian Origins
Author: Ross Shepard Kraemer
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 422
Release: 1999-02-11
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9780195355918

This new collection of fourteen integrated, original essays by prominent scholars and experienced teachers provides a comprehensive and accessible entree to current research on women and the origins of Christianity. Engaging for both the interested reader and the specialist in religion, Women and Christian Origins is sensitive to feminist theory and attentive to distinctions between the (re)construction of women's history in early Christian churches and ancient constructions of gender difference