Doing Things with Words in the First Christian Century

Francis Gerald Downing

• Publisher: Sheffield Academic Press
• Year: 2000
• Print ISBN:
  9781841271514
• eBook ISBN:
  9780567349804
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Biblical Studies

Although its religious heritage was that of a variegated Judaism, the tiny early Christian movement was nevertheless much more complexly and richly linked with the Graeco-Roman world in which it came to birth than is usually allowed for. In particular, 'ordinary' people were capable of a sophisticated use of words that can be detected also in the New Testament writings. But the use of words in Graeco-Roman times was often very different from what we suppose, and this collection of studies attempts to identify some of the anachronisms that still pervade even the best of modern scholarship.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• List of Abbreviations
• Introduction
• Chapter 1 A BAS LES ARISTOS
• Chapter 2 WORDS AS DEEDS AND DEEDS AS WORDS
• Chapter 3 WORDS AND MEANINGS
• Chapter 4 WORD-PROCESSING IN THE ANCIENT WORLD: THE SOCIAL PRODUCTION AND PERFORMANCE OF Q
• Chapter 5 A GENRE FOR Q AND A SOCIO-CULTURAL CONTEXT FOR Q: COMPARING SETS OF SIMILARITIES WITH SETS OF DIFFERENCES
• Chapter 6 MARKAN INTERCALATION IN CULTURAL CONTEXT
• Chapter 7 A RIVAL TO ROMULUS
• Chapter 8 COMPOSITIONAL CONVENTIONS AND THE SYNOPTIC PROBLEM
• Chapter 9 A PARADIGM PERPLEX: LUKE, MATTHEW AND MARK
• Chapter 10 THEOPHILUS'S FIRST HEARING OF LUKE-ACTS
• Chapter 11 SHIFTING SANDS
• Concluding Unscientific Postscript
• Bibliography
• Index of References
• Index of Modern Authors
• Index of Ancient Authors
• Index of Contents