Egeria, who was most probably a Spanish nun, visited the Holy Land only fifty years after the death of Constantine, making her work the earliest surviving account of the area. Her description of the Holy Land, particularly that of Jerusalem, are written with a loving attention to detail, making her the prime source of early Christian pilgrimage and worship. The third edition of John Wilkinson's well-known book is completely updated and as well as a translation of Egeria's account, includes a wealth of information about Egeria, her journey and early liturgy.

The fifteen hagiographies about holy women of the Syrian Orient collected here include stories of martyrs' passions and saints' lives, pious romances and personal reminiscences. Dating from the fourth to seventh centuries A.D., they are translated from Syriac into accessible and vivid prose. Annotations and source notes by the translators help clarify elements that may be unfamiliar to some readers. This collection bears witness to the profound contributions women made to early Chistianity: their various roles, their leadership inside and outside the church structure, and their power to influence others. A new preface discusses recent developments in the field and updates the bibliography.

Luke Johnson here issues a provocative call for a radically new direction in New Testament studies that can change the way we have viewed the entire phenomenon of early Christianity.

Johnson is convinced that the dominant ways of studying early Christianity tend to miss its specifically religious character, because of a disjunction between formal religion and "popular" religion. He proposes in this book, by means of three case studies -- baptism, glossolalia, and meals -- to show how a more holistic, phenomenological approach can be made. This makes possible the inclusion in the study of early Christianity the world of healings and religious power, of ecstasy and spirit -- in short, the religious experience of real persons.

It is this subtle yet real presence of religious experience that alters the discipline and practice of New Testament scholarship, as Johnson notes: "This is neither history in the strict sense of the term, nor is it theology. That's the whole point: we need a new way of looking in order to see what we can't otherwise see. If I have succeeded at least in whetting an appetite for getting at what these chapters try to get at, I am content, for what they try to get at is important."

Johnson concludes that there is still much to be learned about early Christianity as a religion, if we can find a way to get at the category of real experience. He maintains that early Christian texts reflect lives that are caught up by and defined by a power not in their control but controlled instead by the crucified and raised Messiah Jesus.

This series seeks to keep New Testament and early church researchers, teachers, and students abreast of emerging documentary evidence by reproducing and reviewing recently published Greek inscriptions and papyri that illumine the context in which the Christian church developed. Produced by the Ancient History Documentary Research Centre at Macquarie University, the New Docs volumes broaden the context of biblical studies and other related fields and provide a better understanding of the historical and social milieus of early Christianity.

By the fourth century A.D., devout Christians--men and women alike--had begun to retreat from cities and villages to the deserts of North Africa and Asia Minor, where they sought liberation from their corrupt society and the confining shell of the social self. The Desert Fathers is the perfect introduction to the stories and sayings of these heroic pioneers of the contemplative tradition. Selected and translated by Helen Waddell, The Desert Fathers opens a window onto early Christianity while presenting us with touchingly human models of faith, humility, and compassion. With a new Preface by the Cistercian monk, writer, and revered teacher of contemplative prayer M. Basil Pennington, author of O Holy Mountain and Challenges in Prayer.

"God is our home but many of us have strayed from our native land.  The venerable authors of these Spiritual Classics are expert guides--may we follow their directions home."
--Archbishop Desmond Tutu

In this classic study of the Zealots Martin Hengel draws on Josephus, the discoveries of the Qumran texts, the pseudepigrapha, and later rabbinic traditions, to examine the religious, social and political context which led to the Jewish insurrections of 66 A.D. This meticulous and illuminating work makes a major contribution to our understanding of the era which witnessed an eclipse of Judaism and the birth of Christianity.

Shaw's rich and fascinating work provides a startling look at early Christian notions of the body--diet, sexuality, the passions, and especially the ideal of virginity--and sheds important light on the growth of Christian ideals that remain powerful cultural forces even today. Focusing on the fourth and early fifth centuries, Shaw considers three types of Christian arguments--physiological, psychological, and eschatological--about the efficacy of fasting in the ascetic pursuit of chastity. Demonstrating their connections also illumines relationships between body and belief, theory and behavior, and physical self-abnegation and theological speculation. In the process, Shaw examines a variety of texts from the seventh century b.c.e. to the seventh century c.e., including medical treatises, philosophical writings, Christian homilies, and theological treatises.

Four respected scholars of the Hebrew Bible and early Judaism provide a clear portrait of the family in ancient Israel. Important theological and ethical implications are made for the family today.

The Family, Culture, and Religion series offers informed and responsible analyses of the state of the American family from a religious perspective and provides practical assistance for the family's revitalization.

This collection of papers from the Roehampton conference on the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Bible is the first jubilee volume published to celebrate the discovery of the Scrolls fifty years ago. Experts on the Scrolls, Hebrew language, biblical studies, ancient Judaism and modern literary theory cover a range of perspectives-as well as important issues of method and the perennial problems of the identity of the inhabitants of Khirbet Qumran and the relationship between the site and the discoveries in the nearby caves. Contributors include the well-known experts, Philip Davies, George Brooke, Al Wolters and J.D.G. Dunn.>

As presented in the New Testament, the Eucharist is a source of both inspiration and guidance today. In "The Eucharist in the New Testament and the Ealy Church," Father LaVerdiere examines what the New Testament tells us about the Eucharist and how the Eucharist provides an important experiential and theological resource for thegospel stories of Jesus' life, ministry, passion and resurrection, as well as for the life and development of the Church.

Father LaVerdiere illustrates how the origins of the Eucharist coincide with the origins of the Church. The development of the Eucharist reflects the development of the ealy Church, as well as its creative theological and pastoral reflection. Through the lens of the New Testament it views the beginnings of both Church and Eucharist when the risen Lord appeared to the disciples at meals soon after Jesus' passion, death and resurrection. He also looks beyond the New Testament and explores theongoing development of Eucharistic theology and practice up to the mid-second century, ending with Justin Martyr, the first to describe the Eucharist to people who had no personal experience of it.

Father LaVerdiere focuses on the Eucharist in relation to ecclesiology, Christology, and liturgy. He begins by reflecting on how Christians referred to the Eucharist before it had a name, how names for the Eucharist came to be and their importance, how the Eucharist was celebrated at the very beginning, how liturgical formulas came to be, how these formulas brought out the riches of the Eucharist, and how the Eucharist related to different pastoral situations.

The concept of triunity" the assembly, the Eucharist, and the Church guides this study. The Eucharist is the sacrament of the assembly, the sacrament of the Church's life in the world. From the very beginning, there was no separating the three, nor are there separating references to the Eucharist from the letters, gospels, or other work in which the three appear. Here, FatherLaVerdiere stresses that in order to know the Eucharist in the New Testament and the ealy Church, one has only tolook at the composition and actual life of the Church. Thus, to know the Church, one has only to look at the way it celebrates the Eucharist.

Since most of today's chalenges concerning the Eucharist are similar to those experienced by the ealy Church, "The Eucharist in the New Testament and the Ealy Church" will be of greathelp to pastors, students, catechists and those inministry, who want the celebration of the Eucharist to make a difference on the rest of Christian life in the Church.

"Eugene LaVerdiere, SSS, is the senior editor of "Emmanuel "magazine and an adjunct professor of New Testament studies at Catholic Theological Union and Mundelein Seminary in Chicago. He is author of " Fundamentalism: A Pastoral Concern, A Church for al Peoples: Missionary Issues in a World Church, " and "Luke from the New Testament Message " seriespublished by The Liturgical Press.""

In this book, the author discusses the reception of Paul in the modern day church, and argues that Paul and his gospel are the least understood parts of the New Testament in the church today. Beker examines the deutero-Pauline literature to reveal how the earliest churches received Paul's message. Refreshingly, Beker doesn't assume that the deutero-Pauline letters are a corruption of Paul's message. Rather, Beker's reconstruction reveals the ways Paul's gospel was adapted to the particular situations of the deutero-Pauline texts, and this becomes a model for the church today in receiving Paul afresh.

The fifty-six essays in this book present cultural reflections on the gospel reading assigned for each Sunday in Cycle C of the Roman Lectionary. Each essay highlights aspects of the first-century, Eastern Mediterranean cultural world in which Jesus lived and suggests across-cultural comparison with contemporary Western culture. With this background information, readers can make more fitting applications of the Scripture to modern life situations.

In this provocative book, an eminent scholar examines the complex factors that shaped Judaism and early Christianity, analyzing cardinal Judaic and Christian texts and the cultural worlds in which they were written. Howard Clark Kee's sociocultural approach emphasizes the diversity of viewpoint and belief present in Judaism and in early Christianity, as well as the many ways in which the two religions reacted to each other and to the changing circumstances of the first two centuries of the Common Era. According to Kee's interpretation of Jewish documents of the period, Jews began to adopt various models of community to bring into focus their group identity, to show their special relation to God, and to articulate their responsibilities within the community and toward the wider culture. The models they adopted-the community of the wise, the law-abiding community, the community of mystical participation, the city or temple model, and the ethnically and culturally inclusive community-were the means by which they responded to the challenges and opportunities for reinstating themselves as God's people. These models in turn influenced early Christian behavior and writing, becoming means for Christians to define their type of community, to understand the role of Jesus as God's agent in establishing the community, and to outline what their moral life and group structure, as well as their relations with the wider Jewish and Greco-Roman culture, ought to be.

John Finney's account of Celtic and Roman evangelism will challenge and change the way we evangelise

This important new book covers the time between Paul's conversion in Damascus and his arrival in Antioch, set against a detailed background of the early Christian world, the church in Damascus to which Paul was introduced on his conversion, the methods of the first Christian mission, the situation in Arabia during Paul's first mission, the mission territory in Tarsus and Cilicia to which he then moved, and the nature of the church in Antioch. Martin Hengel once more challenges the overly skeptical assessments of the New Testament record and provides powerful support for his position on Paul.

The world of the Roman Empire offered extensive cultural expectations about how families should live. Some passages from the New Testament reflect these values of social stability, but at the same time, other passages make strong statements that seem to be against the family. What was the family like for the first Christians? How did they combine their family values and their new faith? When there were conflicts between family and faith, how did early Christians make choices between them?

Informed by archaeological work and illustrated by figures and photographs, Families in the New Testament World is a remarkable window into the past, one that both informs and illuminates our current condition.

The earliest Christian heretics. "Hultgren and Haggmark have brought together in one volume all of the major orthodox references to persons and theological movements of the first two Christian centuries that were subsequently branded as 'heretical.' In so doing, the editors have done a great service for instructors in early Christian history.. The volume's brief introduction not only helps contextualize the heterodox thinkers or movements in their time but also helps relate the concerns that they addressed in the first and second centuries to those of the late twentieth century. . For those readers as well as for scholars who would like to have a ready reference, this is a useful volume." -Church History "The Earliest Christian Heretics is a 'user-friendly' anthology that will be a great help to both the beginning student and specialized scholar and teacher of early Christianity. Whereas once the researcher had to rifle through the cumbersome volumes of the Ante-Nicene Fathers series, now she can reach for this handy compendium to find all major heresiological entries for the first two centuries presented in a simple, clear format." -Journal of Early Christian Studies "A highly useful compendium of well chosen early Christian writings (in English) directed against a wide variety of heretics, especially Gnostics." -Robert M. Grant, University of Chicago "This book fills a surprising gap. It is highly recommended as a classroom resource for college and seminary, a study guide for the interested nonexpert, and even a handy tool for the graduate student of scholar for quick reference to sources otherwise scattered." -Carolyn Osiek, Catholic Theological Union Arland J. Hultgren is Asher O. and Carrie Nasby Professor of New Testament, and Steven A. Haggmark is Associate Professor of Islamic Studies and Christian Mission and World Religions at Luther Seminary, Saint Paul, Minnesota.

Internationally noted historian Edwin Yamauchi paints an incisive portrait of Persia's role in Old Testament history. As well as providing a detailed assessment of the archaeological and biblical data, he weaves into his meticulously documented text more than one hundred photos, maps, and diagrams.

Paul's Letter to the Romans is one of the most influential writings of Christian theology. From the time of Augustine it has been central in discussions about sin and salvation, about guilt, fear of God, and gratitude for God's mercy. In this groundbreaking reinterpretation, Stanley Stowers argues that Christian tradition has interpreted Romans in an anachronistic fashion fundamentally different from how readers in Paul's time would have read it. He provides a new reading that places Romans within the sociocultural, historical, and rhetorical contexts of Paul's world. Stowers challenges the idea that salvation is the central issue of Paul's letter and that the letter's addressees include Jews. In Stowers's reading, Paul, a Jew immersed in Hellenistic culture, is addressing his letter to an audience of gentiles. Paul says that in faithfulness to his mission and God's promises, Jesus restrained his messianic powers, allowing an opportunity for gentiles to be redeemed. Thus God demonstrated his justice and, by raising Jesus, created a new line of kinship by the Spirit that will lead gentiles to moral and psychological self-mastery. The acceptance and self-mastery that gentiles seek is not to be found in observing teachings from Jewish law. According to Stowers, Romans neither offers an answer to human sinfulness nor presents Christianity as a religion of salvation. Stowers thus reinterprets the relation of Paul's Christianity to Judaism, the meaning of faith, and the significance of Jesus Christ.

The Interpreting Biblical Texts series presents a concise edition covering the seven undisputed epistles of Paul.

In this volume, Charles Cousar is primarily concerned not with the man Paul and his life and work, but with his surviving letters. Part 1 introduces methods in reading the Pauline letters. Part 2 attends to the critical themes emerging in the letters--the decisiveness of Jesus Christ and old versus new life. Part 3 discusses the other six letters bearing Paul's name that appear in the New Testament.

In this fascinating book James D. G. Dunn explores the nature of the religious experiences that were at the forefront of emerging Christianity. Dunn first looks at the religious experience of Jesus, focusing especially on his experience of God in terms of his sense of sonship and his consciousness of the Spirit. He also considers the question of whether Jesus was a charismatic.

Next Dunn examines the religious experiences of the earliest Christian communities, especially the resurrection appearances, Pentecost, and the signs and wonders recounted by Luke. Finally Dunn explores the religious experiences that make Paul so influential and that subsequently shaped Pauline Christianity and the religious life of his churches.

The result is a thorough and stimulating study that not only recovers the religious experiences of Jesus and the early church but also has important implications for our experiences of the Spirit today.

First published in 1975 to much critical acclaim, this important book is now once again available to readers in the United States.

Augustine of Hippo (b. A.D. 354) is considered the single most influential theologian in the history of the Church in the West. Among his many contributions, Augustine developed a sexual ethic that became decisive for all later teachings in the Christian West on issues of marriage, reproduction, and sexuality. Some of the most significant and representative passages on marriage and sexuality from his works are presented here. They recount Augustine's own struggle with sexuality, and stress the important role it played in his conversion to Christianity as well as its influence on his theological principles later in life. The passages in this collection are divided into four chapters which document the chronological development of Augustine's sexual ethic. The first chapter includes passages that pertain to Augustine's own life and illustrate some of his positive and negative models of marital relation. The second chapter recounts Augustine's responses to the Manichean teachings on the body, reproduction, and marriage, mostly from his early years as a Christian. The third chapter contains passages marking Augustine's reaction to the ascetic debates within late fourth-century Latin Christianity. And, finally, the fourth chapter illustrates Augustine's mature sexual and marital ethic, which he elaborated in the midst of--and in reaction to--arguments with Pelagian writers. In a separate introduction, Elizabeth Clark sets the development of Augustine's thought within the context of his own intellectual biography and views it against the background of related issues and movements in the late fourth and early fifth centuries, such as Manichaeism, Jovinianism, and Pelagianism. The selections she presents here offer a comprehensive and uncommonly well-balanced picture of Augustine and his work. St. Augustine on Marriage and Sexuality is the first in a projected series of volumes on various themes found in the writings of the church fathers. ABOUT THE EDITOR: Elizabeth Clark is John Carlisle Kilgo Professor of Religion at Duke University. She is a past president of the American Academy of Religion and the North American Patristic Society, and a member of the editoral board of the Fathers of the Church series.

The fifty-six essays in this book present cultural reflections on the gospel reading assigned for each Sunday in Cycle B of the Roman Lectionary. Each essay highlights aspects of the first-century, Eastern Mediterranean cultural world in which Jesus lived and suggests across-cultural comparison with contemporary Western culture. With this background information, readers can make more fitting applications of the Scripture to modern life situations.

The reader witnesses spiritual adventure of a depth and intensity rarely equaled by creative human beings. Schure is master in depicting for moderns seekers the engrossing story of man's eternal search for the esoteric knowledge of his origin, evolution and destiny in the light of eternal spirit.

With acknowledgment that Christian theology contributed to the persecution and genocide of Jews comes a dilemma: how to excise the cancer without killing the patient? Kendall Soulen shows how important Christian assertions-the uniqueness of Jesus, the Christian covenant, the finality of salvation in Christ-have been formulated in destructive, supersessionist ways not only in the classical period (Justin Martyr, Irenaeus) and early modernity (Kant and Schleiermacher) but even contemporary theology (Barth and Rahner). Along with this first full-scale critique of Christian supersessionism, Soulen's own constructive proposal regraps the narrative unity of Christian identity and the canon through an original and important insight into the divine-human covenant, the election of Israel, and the meaning of history.