Early Christian Epistolarity - (Critical Approaches to Early Christianity) (Hardcover)

About the Book

Drawing on insights from the study of letters through history, leading scholars explore early Christian letters, revealing how they shaped patterns of Christian thought and behaviour, were read and re-read by later generations, and can still be read to experience their power.

Book Synopsis

Many surviving early Christian writings are in the form of letters, some sent by and to those named, others imagined. What did the authors, copyists, and later collectors intend by authoring or reworking letters, as opposed to other genres? How did the first or subsequent readers respond, differently perhaps than to a novel or history? In her Radboud Prestige Lectures in New Testament, published in this volume, Judith Lieu explores these questions by drawing on the concept of 'epistolarity.' Her lectures are followed by chapters by leading experts in the field who engage her work from different angles, finding points of contact and potential conversation between different texts and authors, together with possibilities for further exploration and application.