15. The Anachronism of "Early Christian Communities"
| Dublin Core | PKP Metadata Items | Metadata for this Document | |
| 1. | Title | Title of document | 15. The Anachronism of "Early Christian Communities" - Theorizing Religion in Antiquity |
| 2. | Creator | Author's name, affiliation, country | Sarah Rollens; Canada |
| 3. | Subject | Discipline(s) | Religious Studies; Ancient History |
| 4. | Subject | Keyword(s) | religion in antiquity; ancient religion; ancient history; classics |
| 5. | Subject | Subject classification | ancient religion |
| 6. | Description | Abstract | It has long been common to speak of “early Christian communities”, and especially to assume that particular communities were associated with texts with supposed unique theological ideas (e.g., “Matthew’s community” or “the Roman Christian community”). Stanley Stowers has shown that many scholarly portraits of these communities rely on idealizations from the Book of Acts and Eusebius’ writings. This essay argues, in a similar vein, that presumptions of “early Christian communities” are anachronistic, because they depend on—indeed embody modern understandings of religious identity: in particular, that religion is a private, interior matter that is shared among a wider “community” of believers who all orient their collective identity around these beliefs. These features of identity should not be taken for granted in non-modern contexts, and there are more nuanced ways to understand the group identity generated by many proto- Christian texts. |
| 7. | Publisher | Organizing agency, location | Equinox Publishing Ltd |
| 8. | Contributor | Sponsor(s) | |
| 9. | Date | (YYYY-MM-DD) | 13-May-2019 |
| 10. | Type | Status & genre | Peer-reviewed Article |
| 11. | Type | Type | |
| 12. | Format | File format | |
| 13. | Identifier | Uniform Resource Identifier | https://journals.equinoxpub.com/index.php/books/article/view/27975 |
| 14. | Identifier | Digital Object Identifier | 10.1558/equinox.27975 |
| 15. | Source | Journal/conference title; vol., no. (year) | Equinox eBooks Publishing; Theorizing Religion in Antiquity |
| 16. | Language | English=en | en |
| 18. | Coverage | Geo-spatial location, chronological period, research sample (gender, age, etc.) |
worldwide, 6th century BCE to 4th century CE |
| 19. | Rights | Copyright and permissions | Copyright 2014 Equinox Publishing Ltd |