Communal Reading in the Time of Jesus: A Window into Early Christian Reading Practices

by Brian J. Wright

Overview

Much of the contemporary discussion of the Jesus tradition has focused on aspects of oral performance, storytelling, and social memory, on the premise that the practice of communal reading of written texts was a phenomenon documented no earlier than the second century CE. Brian J. Wright overturns that premise by examining evidence that demonstrates communal reading events in the first century. Wright disproves the simplistic notion that only a small segment of society in certain urban areas could have been involved in such communal reading events during the first century; rather, communal reading permeated a complex, multifaceted cultural field in which early Christians, Philo, and many others participated. His study thus pushes the academic conversation back by at least a century and raises important new questions regarding the formation of the Jesus tradition, the contours of book culture in early Christianity, and factors shaping the transmission of the text of the New Testament. These fresh insights have the potential to inform historical reconstructions of the nature of the earliest churches as well as the story of canon formation and textual transmission.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781506438498
Publisher:	Augsburg Fortress, Publishers
Publication date:	12/01/2017
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	320
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

Brian J. Wright is adjunct professor at Palm Beach Atlantic University and has published a number of academic studies in the Journal of Theological Studies, Catholic Biblical Quarterly, Bulletin for Biblical Research, Trinity Journal, and Tyndale Bulletin. He is also coauthor of Revisiting the Corruption of the New Testament: Manuscript, Patristic, and Apocryphal Evidence (2011).

Table of Contents

Foreword xvii

Preface xxi

Abbreviations xxv

1 Introducing a New Control Category 1

Introduction 1

A New Control Category: Communal Reading Events 8

2 Finding Communal Reading Events in the Time of Jesus 11

Registering a Few Cautions 12

Some Key Terminology 16

Summary 21

3 Economic and Political Factors 23

Economic Realities 23

Political Climate 31

Summary 37

4 Social Context 39

Surveying the Dynamic Environment in Which Jesus and His First Followers Operated 39

Background in Judaism 54

Summary 59

5 Communal Reading Events in the First Century: Selected Authors and Texts 61

Greek and Roman Authors 63

Jewish Sources 100

Summary 111

6 Communal Reading Events in the First Century: The New Testament Corpus 117

The Gospels and Acts 121

The Pauline Corpus 153

Hebrews 184

James 185

The Petrine Epistles 188

The Johannine Epistles 191

Jude 194

Revelation 195

Summary 201

7 Concluding Remarks 207

Appendix: Some Additional Evidence 211

Ancient Rabbinic Writings 211

Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha 213

Early Christian Writings 215

Greco-Roman Associations 217

Greek and Roman Authors 217

Other Ancient Writings 230

Bibliography 233

Subject Index 271

Author Index 277

Scripture Index 285