Description: Further DetailsTitle: Destroyer of the GodsCondition: NewEAN: 9781481304740ISBN: 9781481304740Publisher: Baylor University PressFormat: PaperbackRelease Date: 04/16/2017Item Height: 215mmItem Length: 139mmAuthor: Larry W. HurtadoLanguage: EnglishSubtitle: Early Christian Distinctiveness in the Roman WorldDescription: Silly,"" ""stupid,"" ""irrational,"" ""simple."" ""Wicked,"" ""hateful,"" ""obstinate,"" ""anti-social."" ""Extravagant,"" ""perverse."" The Roman world rendered harsh judgments upon early Christianity - including branding Christianity ""new."" Novelty was no Roman religious virtue.Nevertheless, as Larry W. Hurtado shows in Destroyer of the gods, Christianity thrived despite its new and distinctive features and opposition to them. Unlike nearly all other religious groups, Christianity utterly rejected the traditional gods of the Roman world. Christianity also offered a new and different kind of religious identity, one not based on ethnicity. Christianity was distinctively a ""bookish"" religion, with the production, copying, distribution, and reading of texts as central to its faith, even preferring a distinctive book-form, the codex. Christianity insisted that its adherents behave differently: unlike the simple ritual observances characteristic of the pagan religious environment, embracing Christian faith meant a behavioral transformation, with particular and novel ethical demands for men. Unquestionably, to the Roman world, Christianity was both new and different, and, to a good many, it threatened social and religious conventions of the day.In the rejection of the gods and in the centrality of texts, early Christianity obviously reflected commitments inherited from its Jewish origins. But these particular features were no longer identified with Jewish ethnicity and early Christianity quickly became aggressively trans-ethnic - a novel kind of religious movement. Its ethical teaching, too, bore some resemblance to the philosophers of the day, yet in contrast with these great teachers and their small circles of dedicated students, early Christianity laid its hard demands upon all adherents from the moment of conversion, producing a novel social project. Christianity's novelty was no badge of honor. Called atheists and suspected of political subversion, Christians earned Roman disdain and suspicion in equal amounts. Yet, as Destroyer of the gods demonstrates, in an irony of history the very features of early Christianity that rendered it distinctive and objectionable in Roman eyes have now become so commonplace in Western culture as to go unnoticed. Christianity helped destroy one world and create another.Country/Region of Manufacture: USGenre: Philosophy & SpiritualityRelease Year: 2017 Missing Information?Please contact us if any details are missing and where possible we will add the information to our listing.
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Book Title: Destroyer of the Gods
Title: Destroyer of the Gods
EAN: 9781481304740
ISBN: 9781481304740
Release Date: 04/16/2017
Release Year: 2017
Subtitle: Early Christian Distinctiveness in the Roman World
Country/Region of Manufacture: US
Genre: Philosophy & Spirituality
Number of Pages: 304 Pages
Publication Name: Destroyer of the Gods : Early Christian Distinctiveness in the Roman World
Language: English
Publisher: Baylor University Press
Item Height: 0.8 in
Subject: Christianity / History, Christian Church / History, Ancient / Rome
Publication Year: 2017
Type: Textbook
Item Weight: 12 Oz
Subject Area: Religion, History
Author: Larry W. Hurtado
Item Length: 8.5 in
Item Width: 5.5 in
Format: Trade Paperback