The Beginnings of Christianity

An Introduction to the New Testament

Howard Clark Kee

• Publisher: T&T Clark
• Year: 2005
• Print ISBN:
  9780567027313
• eBook ISBN:
  9780567315403
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Biblical Criticism & Interpretation

To understand the historical beginnings of Christianity
requires one not only to examine the documents that the movement produced, but also to
scrutinize other evidence-historical, literary, and archaeological-that can illumine the
socio-cultural context in which Christianity began and how it responded to the influences
that derived from that setting. This involves not only analysis of the readily accessible
content of the relevant literary evidence, but also attention to the world-views and
assumptions about reality that are inherent in these documents and other phenomena that
have survived from this period. Attention to the roles of leadership and the modes of
formation of social identity in Judaism and the continuing influence of these developments as Christianity began to take shape is important for historical analysis.
Distinguished New Testament scholar Kee performs such readings of the texts and communities in this dazzling study of early Christian origins. In methodological terms, the historical study of Christian Origins in all its diversity must involve three different modes of analysis: (1) epistemological, (2) sociological, and (3) eschatological. The first concerns the way in which knowledge and communication of it were perceived. The second seeks to discern the way in which the community or tradition preserving and conveying this information defined its group identity and its shared values and aims. The third focuses on the way in which the group understood and affirmed its ultimate destiny and that of its members in the purpose of God. These factors are interrelated, and features of one mode of perception strongly influence details of the others, but it is useful to consider each of them in its own category in order to discern with greater precision the specific historical features of the spectrum of facets which appear in the evidence that has survived concerning the origins of Christianity.

Table of contents

• Contents
• INTRODUCTION: Methods and Resources for the History of Christian Origins
• CHAPTER ONE: The Impact of Graeco-Roman Politics and Culture on Judaism
• CHAPTER TWO: Thejesus Tradition and the Formation of the New Covenant Community
• CHAPTER THREE: Paul and the Apostolic Traditions: Christianity Extends into the Wider Graeco-Roman World
• CHAPTER FOUR: The Noncanonical Apostolic Traditions
• CHAPTER FIVE: The Emerging Structures of Early Christianity: Modes of Achieving Theological and Social Unity
• EXCURSUS 1 Changing Historical Models in the Biblical Tradition
• EXCURSUS 2 Changing Historical Methods in the Study of Christian Origins
• EXCURSUS 3 Wisdom and Gnosticism: Origins and Impact on Christianity
• EXCURSUS 4 The Multiple Impact of Stoicism on the Origins of Christianity
• EXCURSUS 5 Facing the Future: Common Themes in Jewish Apocalyptic and Graeco-Roman Philosophy and Literature
• EXCURSUS 6 Bridal Imagery in the Mysteries of the Kabeiroi and ofSerapis
• EXCURSUS 7 The Kingdom of God in the Pauline Letters
• Index