Böcker av April D. DeConick

A ground-breaking introductory textbook for the study of the New Testament and the first Christians, written for the next generation of studentsComparing Christianities: An Introduction to the New Testament and the First Christians maps the historical rise of Christianity out of a network of early Christian movements. This major new textbook systematically explores the struggles to define the faith by presenting Christianity as the result of a lengthy process of religious consolidation which emerged from a landscape of persistent Christian diversity.The book delves into the history of the first five generations of Christians, from Paul to Origen. The first chapter considers the challenges of constructing Christian histories and offers a new model of Christian families to organize and explain the emergence and competition of different varieties of Christianity. Each successive chapter focuses on key issues that Christian leaders engaged over the centuries, demonstrating how the questions they posed and the answers they provided gave Christianity its distinct shape. As the movements competed for social advantage, Christians began identifying certain Christian movements as enemies and consolidated against them. The final chapter schematizes the Christians studied in the book into three families of Christian movements based on the particular God they worshipped and other shared patterns of thought and practice. This chapter also explains where the varieties of Christianities came from and how the process of consolidation undertaken by some churches shaped Christian identity within a forge of intolerance that still affects us today.Comparing Christianities explores the answers to questions:* Who were the early Christians and what did they write?* What did Christians think about sex, women, immortality, Judaism, suffering and death?* What rituals did the first Christians practice, and what did their religious experiences mean to them?* How did Christians live in a Roman-dominated world?* How did the first Christians explain the origins of their movement?Comparing Christianities: An Introduction to the New Testament and the First Christians serves as an excellent primary textbook in undergraduate classrooms for Introduction to Christianity, Introduction to Religion, New Testament Studies, Christian Origins, World Religions, and Western World Religions, and a thought-provoking resource for anyone wishing to know more about Christianity.

In the end, DeConick shows that Thomas is best explained as arising from the fusion of Jewish Mysticism and Hermetic praxis and not as being shaped by gnostic traditions.--Marvin Meyer "Journal of Biblical Literature"

A tribute to the scholarship and friendship of Larry Hurtado (University of Edinburgh) and Alan Segal (Barnard College), two scholars who have contributed significantly to the contemporary understanding of Second Temple and Rabbinic Judaism and early Christianity.

Explores tough questions that have occupied scholars since the discovery of the "Gospel of Thomas" in the sands of Nag Hammadi, Egypt, in the 1940's. Where did this gospel come from? When was it written? Who wrote it? Why was it composed? What is its meaning? This book examines these issues.

In 2006, National Geographic released the English translation of the "Gospel of Judas. It caused a sensation because it seemed to overturn the popular image of Judas the betrayer and instead presented a benevolent Judas. This work offers a translation of the "Gospel of Judas" which challenges the National Geographic interpretation of a good Judas.

Provides an English translation of the entire "Gospel of Thomas", which includes the original 'kernel' of the Gospel and all the sayings. This book also includes translations to the parallels of the Gospel.