Authors: Halvor Moxnes, Halvor Moxnes
ISBN-13: 9780415146395, ISBN-10: 0415146399
Format: Paperback
Publisher: Taylor & Francis, Inc.
Date Published: April 1997
Edition: New Edition
The family is a topical issue for studies of the Ancient world. Family, household and kinship have different connotations in antiquity from their modern ones. This volume expands that discussion to investigate the early Christian family structures within the larger Graeco-Roman context. The essays in the volume offer original and diverse perspectives; particular emphasis is given to how family metaphors, such as 'brotherhood' function to describe relations in early Christian communities. Asceticism and the rejection of sexuality are considered in the context of Christian constructions of the family. Moxnes' volume presents a comprehensive and timely addition to the study of familial and social structures in the Early Christian world, which will certainly stimulate further debate.
List of illustrations | ||
List of contributors | ||
Preface | ||
List of abbreviations | ||
1 | Introduction | 1 |
2 | What is Family? Problems in Constructing Early Christian Families | 13 |
3 | The Family in First-Century Galilee | 42 |
4 | The Family as the Bearer of Religion in Judaism and Early Christianity | 66 |
5 | The Relativisation of Family Ties in the Jewish and Graeco-Roman Traditions | 81 |
6 | The Roman Family: Ideal and Metaphor | 103 |
7 | Family Imagery and Christian Identity in Gal 5:13 to 6:10 | 121 |
8 | Equality Within Patriarchal Structures: Some New Testament Perspectives on the Christian Fellowship as a Brother- or Sisterhood and a Family | 150 |
9 | Brotherhood in Plutarch and Paul: Its Role and Character | 166 |
10 | Brotherhood in Christ: A Gender Hermeneutical Reading of 1 Thessalonians | 183 |
11 | Paul Without Passion: On Paul's Rejection of Desire in Sex and Marriage | 201 |
12 | Asceticism and Anti-Familial Language in the Gospel of Thomas | 216 |
13 | Family Structures in Gnostic Religion | 235 |
Index of ancient sources | 250 | |
Index of modern authors | 262 |