T&T Clark Christian History Collection (3 vols.)

by David H. Wenkel; Allen Brent; Josef Lössl

Publisher:

T&T Clark

, 2009–2018

Overview

This collection from T&T Clark brings together several resources for enriching your understanding of various times and places in Christian history. From the politics of the Roman Empire to the passionate disagreements over the doctrine of the Trinity, these books provide penetrating and insightful analysis of pivotal historical moments. Whether you are a student of history, a scholar, or just an interested layperson, you will find these texts informative and enlightening.

Key Features

• Chronicles key moments of Christian history with intellectual rigor
• Offers new ways of thinking about familiar stories from history
• Provides keen insight into how Christians from various time periods really thought

Product Details

• Title: T&T Clark Christian History Collection
• Publisher: T&T Clark
• Volumes: 3
• Pages: 824
• Resource Type: Monographs
• Topic: Church History

A Political History of Early Christianity

• Author: Allen Brent
• Publisher: T&T Clark
• Publication Date: 2009
• Pages: 344

Sample Pages: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7

In A Political History of Early Christianity, Allen Brent tells the story of the triumph of early Christianity in the political context of the Roman Empire. Brent offers a unique look at the beginnings of the Christian movement by focusing on the relationship of Christianity to the politics of the surrounding culture in the first four centuries after Jesus. Bold, provocative, and never shying away from the difficult questions, Brent provides a thorough, nuanced account of how Christianity went from a small, fringe movement to the dominant force in the Roman Empire.

Allen Brent’s Political History of Early Christianity is breath-taking and ground-breaking. He argues that the Jesus Movement, from its earliest days until it blossomed into the officially sanctioned Christianity of the Roman Empire under Constantine at the start of the fourth century, was inextricably linked to and in tension with the political concerns of wider culture. However, Brent demonstrates that this does not reduce Jesus and the movement that evolved in his name to a group of mere social revolutionaries. Rather, the value-inverting and world-negating philosophy they espoused stemmed from deep-seated apocalyptic beliefs. Brent is master of four centuries of Christian history and deploys this knowledge to build a case that is convincing and compelling. A first-rate book from a first rate-scholar.

—Paul Foster, University of Edinburgh, UK

Allen Brent is one of the boldest and most seminal historians currently writing about Christianity in the ancient world. In his works on Hippolytus and Ignatius, he has already displayed his magisterial learning and his ability to shed new light on the history of ideas by the investigation of social and cultural backgrounds. If he is not one to be carried away on a bandwagon, he is also not one to neglect a theory merely because it is difficult or because it has become dangerously fashionable in other disciplines. His aim in the present book is to examine the relation between metaphysical theories and their political contexts, with a broad remit in the interpretation of the terms “metaphysical” and “political”. The introduction promises an astute engagement with such figures as sociologist Peter Berger, intellectual historian Quentin Skinner and the virtuoso of the social sciences, Max Weber. In his opening chapter he plunges dauntlessly into the thickets of New Testament scholarship, doing ample justice to the arguments of those who deny an eschatological character to the original preaching of Jesus, but showing at the same time that their attempts to cast Jesus as an ascetic teacher for the present world exaggerates the significance of non-canonical texts and is patently motivated by contemporary interests. The writing is characteristically lucid, the scholarship impeccable, the argument brisk but incisive; if this chapter is an augury of the rest, we can expect another distinguished addition to a corpus of scholarship that is already impressive.

—Mark Edwards, Christ Church, Oxford, UK

Allen Brent is formerly a professor in history at James Cook University of North Queensland, Australia, and is now member of the Faculty of Divinity at the University of Cambridge and is senior member of St. Edmund’s College. His books include Cultural Episcopacy and Ecumenism, Hippolytus and the Roman Church in the Third Century, and The Imperial Cult and the Development of Church Order.

Coins as Cultural Texts in the World of the New Testament

• Author: David H. Wenkel
• Publisher: T&T Clark
• Publication Date: 2018
• Pages: 224

Sample Pages: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7

Coins have long been a vital part of the discipline of classical studies of the ancient world. However, many scholars have commented that coins have not been adequately integrated into the study of the New Testament. This book provides an interdisciplinary gateway to the study of numismatics for those who are engaged in biblical studies.

Wenkel argues that coins from the 1st century were cultural texts with communicative power. He establishes a simple yet comprehensive hermeneutic that defines coins as cultural texts and explains how they might be interpreted today. Once coins are understood to be cultural texts, Wenkel proceeds to explain how these texts can be approached from three angles. First, the world in front of the coin is defined as the audience who initially read and responded to coins as cultural texts. The entire Roman Empire used coins for payment. Second, the world of the coin refers to the coin itself – the combination of inscriptions and images. This combination of inscription and image was used ubiquitously as a tool of propaganda. Third, the world behind the coin refers to the world of power and production behind the coins. This third angle explores the concept of authorship of coins as cultural texts.

This book will play an important role in opening the world of numismatics to NT scholars and students.

—Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society

Nusimatic evidence stands as one of the most important sources of our knowledge into the world of the New Testament and Dr Wenkel here provides a user-friendly approach to assessing that evidence. Whether you are interested in what the ‘tribute penny’ (Mark 12:15) was, or what the value or significance of the ‘30 pieces of silver’ for which Jesus was betrayed by Judas, this is an excellent resource for your investigation. The significance and importance of coinage as an over-looked window into the first-century world is here vividly presented. A very useful resource indeed!

—Larry J. Kreitzer, Regent’s Park College, UK

David H. Wenkel is adjunct professor of New Testament at Moody Bible Institute in Chicago, Illinois.

The Early Church: History and Memory

• Author: Josef Lössl
• Publisher: T&T Clark
• Publication Date: 2010
• Pages: 256

Sample Pages: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7

This introductory study is written from a new religious and theological studies perspective. Building on latest research in history and archaeology it also deals with reception studies, including popular literature, fiction, film, art and new religions.

The book illustrates how perceptions of the early church still dominate the wider cultural discourse and how much that discourse is in need of a historically informed notion of ‘the early church.’

The book falls into seven chapters. Chapter I discusses concepts like ‘early church’ and ‘early Christianity’ and wider aspects of reception. Chapter II deals with concepts of history, memory and cultural origins in early Christian thought and its study. Chapter III outlines varieties of religious traditions in the context of the early church, especially Hellenistic Judaism. Chapter IV discusses Jewish and Gentile identities in the early church. Chapter V deals with the emergence of an early Christian literature. Chapter VI outlines the development of early Christian religious practices, and Chapter VII looks at leadership and political structures in and around the early church and their implications.

This volume would be of great value to those searching for a non-linear textbook approach to the history of the early church, but is of equal value to the general and advanced reader interested in the subject. . . Recommended for all upper level libraries in colleges, universities, and seminaries, and for advanced readers who have an interest in the Early Church and are seeking a different approach to the subject. Large parish libraries should also consider adding this title.

—Catholic Library World - vol. 82, no. 1

On the whole, this book is to be commended as a worthy and orginal addition to the genre of introductions to early church history. Lössl’s use of ecomonic in-text citation, coupled with a copious bibliography, is a particular asset, and will doubtless serve the curious student especially well.

—Alexis Torrance, Christ Church, University of Oxford, Theological Book Review

Lössl discusses the development of Judaism and Christianity from unclear boundaries ion the early centuries to distinct identities in later centuries. Employing socio-anthropological thinking, he describes the religious practices of early Christians such as baptism and the Eucharist, also including discussions of church buildings, relics, Sabbath observance, and books.

—Matthew R. Crawford, Univesity of Durham, Theological Book Review

Dr. Josef Lössl is Reader in Patristics and Late Antiquity at Cardiff University, School of Religious and Theological Studies, and director of the Cardiff University Centre for Late Antique Religion and Culture. He is also the author of Julian von Aeclanum.