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The Oxford Handbook of Early Christian Ritual

Online ISBN:
9780191810749
Print ISBN:
9780198747871
Publisher:
Oxford University Press
Book

The Oxford Handbook of Early Christian Ritual

Risto Uro (ed.),
Risto Uro
(ed.)
Theology and Religious Studies, University of Helsinki
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Risto Uro is Senior Lecturer in New Testament Studies and chair of the BA programme in theology and religious studies at the University of Helsinki, Finland. He is Life Member of Clare Hall College, University of Cambridge. His research covers such areas as the Synoptic Gospels, the Nag Hammadi Library, and the social history of early Christianity. More recently, Uro has pioneered the development of ritual approaches to biblical studies. His particular interest is in cognitive theories of ritual. He led an international research project entitled ‘Ritual and the Emergence of Early Christian Religion: A Socio-Cognitive Analysis’ (2013–2017). His most recent monograph is Ritual and Christian Beginnings: A Socio-Cognitive Analysis (2016).

Juliette J. Day (ed.),
Juliette J. Day
(ed.)
Theology, University of Helsinki
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Juliette J. Day is Docent and University Lecturer in Church History in the Faculty of Theology, University of Helsinki, Finland, and Senior Research Fellow in Early Christian Liturgy at Blackfriars Hall, University of Oxford, UK. Her research focuses on early Christian liturgy, especially that of Jerusalem/Palestine in late antiquity, and on the interpretation of ancient and contemporary liturgical texts. Significant publications include: The Baptismal Liturgy of Jerusalem (2007); Reading the Liturgy (2014), Early Roman Liturgy to 600 (edited with Marcus Vinzent, 2014) and A Guide to the Study of Liturgy and Worship (edited with Benjamin Gordon-Taylor, 2013).

Rikard Roitto (ed.),
Rikard Roitto
(ed.)
Theology, Stockholm School of Theology
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Rikard Roitto is Docent and University Lecturer of Biblical Studies, New Testament, at Stockholm School of Theology, Sweden. In his research, he integrates historical-critical methods with social, psychological, and cognitive sciences to understand early Christian texts and communities. His research interests include social identity, norms, rituals of penance and forgiveness, conflict resolution, and baptism in early Christianity. He has written several articles on ritual practices of reproof, repentance, penance, intercession for forgiveness, and reintegration of deviant group members in early Christianity.

Richard E. DeMaris (ed.)
Richard E. DeMaris
(ed.)
Religion, Valparaiso University
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Richard E. DeMaris is Senior Research Professor of New Testament Studies at Valparaiso University, USA, and has served as the Catholic Biblical Association Visiting Professor to the Pontifical Biblical Institute in Rome. He is a research associate of the Nordic Project on Ritual and the Emergence of Early Christian Religion and was a staff member of the Ohio State University Excavations at Isthmia, Greece, in the 1990s. His publications on ritual include Early Christian Ritual Life (edited with Jason Lamoreaux and Steven Muir, 2018), and The New Testament in Its Ritual World (2008).

Published online:
11 December 2018
Published in print:
15 November 2018
Online ISBN:
9780191810749
Print ISBN:
9780198747871
Publisher:
Oxford University Press

Abstract

Scholars of religion have long assumed that ritual and belief constitute the fundamental building blocks of religious traditions and that these two components of religion are interrelated and interdependent in significant ways. Generations of New Testament and early Christian scholars have produced detailed analyses of the belief systems of nascent Christian communities, including their ideological and political dimensions, but have by and large ignored ritual as an important element of early Christian religion and as a factor contributing to the rise and the organization of the movement. In recent years, however, scholars of early Christianity have begun to use ritual as an analytical tool for describing and explaining Christian origins and the early history of the movement. Such a development has created a momentum towards producing a more comprehensive volume on the ritual world of early Christianity employing advances made in the field of Ritual Studies. The Handbook will give a manifold account of the ritual world of early Christianity from the beginning of the movement up to the fifth century. The volume introduces relevant theories and approaches (Part I), central topics of ritual life in the cultural world of early Christianity (Part II), and the most important Christian ritual themes and practices in emerging Christian groups and factions (Parts III and IV).

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