Birth of a Worldview: Early Christianity in Its Jewish and Pagan Context

by Robert Doran

Overview

This book explores how early Christian intellectuals expressed their understanding of the cosmos. It reviews the role of women, documentation of the vitality and influence of Jewish intellectual thought, and the continuing impact of Greek intellectual thought during Christianity's formative years.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780429723230
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	04/11/2019
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	200
File size:	511 KB

About the Author

Doran, Robert

Table of Contents

Explorations -- Time Line -- Introduction -- Christians and the Roman World: A Sense of Belonging -- Cosmos: The Quest for Order -- Jews in the Roman Empire -- The First Steps: Articulating Alienation -- The Source of Power -- The Human Condition -- Neither Male nor Female -- Conclusion

Editorial Reviews

Doran (Amherst College) explores how early Christian intellectuals expressed their understanding of the cosmos. His concern is not with their ethical codes of behavior, but with how their lifeways distinguished them from other religious groups, and how they thought about God and God's relationship with the earth and the humans on it. The treatment is an intellectual history rather than a description of events. It includes a chronology and a map. First published in 1995 by Westview Press as part of the Explorations series. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Booknews

Fascinating. . . An original contribution to the study of the early Church, and an essential companion and guide to existing textbooks and collections of documents on the period.

Church Times - Revered W.H.C. Frend

Doran offers us a balanced and insightful tour through the emergence of a distinctively Christian world-view. Seven succinct and readable chapters cover Christianity before Constantine, Christian cosmology, relations with the Jews, the emergence of the canon, the emergence of orthodox theology, the human condition, and the role of women. The text is amply supported with selections from primary literature. This makes the book a good choice for courses introducing early Christianity. . . . A fine synthesis of key themes operative in the emergence of Christianity.

Theological Studies - John J. Keefe

Through succinct discussion and frequent, extensive citations of primary sources, Doran brings alive the diverse ways Christian intellectuals from the first to the fifth centuries expressed their understanding of the cosmos and their place in it.

CHOICE

Fascinating. . . An original contribution to the study of the early Church, and an essential companion and guide to existing textbooks and collections of documents on the period.
— Revered W.H.C. Frend

Church Times

Doran offers us a balanced and insightful tour through the emergence of a distinctively Christian world-view. Seven succinct and readable chapters cover Christianity before Constantine, Christian cosmology, relations with the Jews, the emergence of the canon, the emergence of orthodox theology, the human condition, and the role of women. The text is amply supported with selections from primary literature. This makes the book a good choice for courses introducing early Christianity. . . . A fine synthesis of key themes operative in the emergence of Christianity.
— John J. Keefe

Theological Studies

Through succinct discussion and frequent, extensive citations of primary sources, Doran brings alive the diverse ways Christian intellectuals from the first to the fifth centuries expressed their understanding of the cosmos and their place in it.

Choice