Social and Cognitive Perspectives on the Sermon on the Mount offers fresh readings of themes and individual sayings in the Sermon on the Mount (SM) using socio-cognitive approaches. Because these approaches are invested in patterns of human cognition and social mechanisms, the resulting collection highlights the persistent appeal and persuasiveness of the SM: from innate moral drives, to the biology of emotion and risk-taking, to the formation and obliteration of in-group/out-group distinctions. Through these theories the authors show why--even across cultures and history--the SM continues to grip both individual minds and groups of people in order to shape moral communities. Classical historical-critical readings interpret the sermon according to the conventions of literature, seeking a relationship to other texts and ideas. By contrast our volume explores the SM not so much for the logical and historical relationships to other literary traditions, but also--and perhaps more importantly--for the ways it stimulates emotional, biologically, culturally habituated, evolutionarily preconditioned, and socially sanctioned characteristics of humans. In short, the volume shines a light on the action-inducing properties of the text. The volume will introduce a broader group of scholars, students, and clergy to the relevance of social scientific and cognitive studies for interpretation of the Bible, by applying these approaches to possibly the most read and discussed text in the Bible.

The Pauline letter to the Ephesians and other texts of the early Christ-movement present behavior norms that vary considerably from one text to another. Many of these behavior norms were quite conventional in the first-century Mediterranean world and not unique to the Christ-movement. Nevertheless, the norms are typically presented as expressions of the identity as Christ-believers. Why? How was the relation between social identity and behavior norms constructed in the early Christ-movement? How did the Christ-believers in the early Christ-movement experience their identity “in Christ” as both causing and requiring certain behaviors? The purpose of this study is twofold: Roitto first discusses how the cognitive sciences can provide a theoretical framework to answer the questions raised above. The aim is to provide an analytical perspective that is founded on cognitive research regarding how human minds handle identities and behavior norms. Second, he applies this framework to the Pauline letter to the Ephesians in order to present a new understanding of the letter, particularly of the relation between identity and behavior norms as expressed in the text. In the analysis of Ephesians, Roitto also discusses the potential group-dynamic effects of Ephesians, assuming hypothetically that its construction of identity and behavior norms was embraced by local communities of Christ-believers. In order to demonstrate the broader relevance of the approach in the ancient Mediterranean context and in the early Christ-movement, Roitto also intentionally takes illustrative examples from ancient sources outside of the Bible.

Scholars of religion have long assumed that ritual and belief constitute the fundamental building blocks of religious traditions and that these two components of religion are interrelated and interdependent in significant ways. Generations of New Testament and Early Christian scholars have produced detailed analyses of the belief systems of nascent Christian communities, including their ideological and political dimensions, but have by and large ignored ritual as an important element of early Christian religion and as a factor contributing to the rise and the organization of the movement. In recent years, however, scholars of early Christianity have begun to use ritual as an analytical tool for describing and explaining Christian origins and the early history of the movement. Such a development has created a momentum toward producing a more comprehensive volume on the ritual world of Early Christianity employing advances made in the field of ritual studies. The Oxford Handbook of Early Christian Ritual gives a manifold account of the ritual world of early Christianity from the beginning of the movement up to the fifth century. The volume introduces relevant theories and approaches; central topics of ritual life in the cultural world of early Christianity; and important Christian ritual themes and practices in emerging Christian groups and factions.

Social and Cognitive Perspectives on the Sermon on the Mount introduces a broader group of scholars, students, and clergy to the relevance of social scientific and cognitive studies for interpretation of the Bible, by applying these approaches to what is possibly the most read and discussed text in the Bible. Because these approaches are invested in patterns of human cognition and social mechanisms, this collection highlights the persistent appeal and persuasiveness of the Sermon: from innate moral drives, to the biology of emotion and risk-taking, to the formation and obliteration of in-group/out-group distinctions. Through these socio-cognitive theories the authors show why-even across cultures and history-the Sermon continues to grip both individual minds and groups of people to shape moral communities.