Expand your Research Potential through Early Christian Art

Logos is on the brink of shipping an exceptional resource for those working in Early Christian studies, and useful for those wishing to expand their research capabilities in the NT. The Eerdman’s Encyclopedia of Early Christian Art and Archaeology (EECAA) is a massive three-volume work in print, but will be available very soon for your digital Logos library. The pre-publication price is especially attractive, at $100 off the retail price, so make sure to place your order this week (it ships next Monday).

The value of a resource such as this can be demonstrated through a simple example. Let’s say that you are researching the early church’s understanding of the Sacrifice of Isaac. This is a foundational story in the OT, setting the stage for the building of the Temple and the death and resurrection of Jesus, which has enjoyed a prolonged history of interpretation throughout Jewish and Christian exegesis alike.

Now, in your own research you will certainly read all of the relevant primary texts where Abraham’s near-slaughter of his son is recounted, including the OT, NT, and both Jewish and Christian Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha. But your work as a serious scholar and/or diligent pastor is not finished. There is an entire other body of interpretative work that has yet to be considered, namely, visual media including art and archaeology.

At this very moment the EECAA enters the forum to the thunder of raucous applause. With this resource in your Logos digital library, you skip the exorbitant shipping costs and save precious shelf space, and gain immediate access to every entry with a mere click, fully hyperlinked and tagged to integrate with the rest of your research tools and resources on Logos.

Here’s a sneak-peak of the entry on Abraham’ sacrifice of Isaac:

There is immense value in having this information with images (and bibliography!) at your fingertips when preparing a sermon or conference paper on Genesis 22, the OT backdrop to Jesus’ death and resurrection, or Romans 8:32, for example. However, the images above do little justice to the final product in Logos, where links are active and tagging abounds. 

So don’t forget, this week is the ideal time to get your copy of the Eerdman’s Encyclopedia of of Early Christian Art and Archaeology in the best possible format, as part of your growing Logos research library, before the price increases post-publication.

Happy reading,

The Editor