The Religion of the Earliest Churches: Creating a Symbolic World

Type

Book

Authors

Gerd Theissen

ISBN 10

080063179X

ISBN 13

9780800631796

Tags

Church History, History, Christianity, Religion & Spirituality

Description

A major contribution to the theory of religion and the formative stages of churches around the Mediterranean. In these distinguished Oxford lectures, Theissen picks up where he left off in The Historical Jesus: A Comprehensive Guide (1998). Employing the notion of religion as a "cultural sign language that promises a gain in life by corresponding to an ultimate reality," he plots the emergence of Christianity as a religion, with elements of myth, ritual, ethics, and an emergent symbolic system. He expands upon the historical, social, and theological analysis of his earlier works to cover such issues as the relationship of Jesus to the earliest churches, power, possessions, interpretations of Jesus' death, and the separation of the church and synagogue. - from Amzon

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