Bible Reading In The Early Church

Examines the role played by the Old Testament in the formation of early Christian thinking.

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 the premise that communal reading of written texts was a phenomenon documented no earlier than the second century CE by examining evidence for its practice in the first century.

Adolf von Harnack (1851-1930) is recognized as one of the outstanding church historians of his day. He was Professor of Church History successively in the universities of Leipzig, Giessen, Marburg, and Berlin. His great work, A History of Dogma, has exerted an important influence upon modern theological study. Other titles translated into English include A History of the Expansion of Christianity, The Apostles Creed, and The Acts of the Apostles.

Many Christians today long to become reacquainted with their ancient ancestors in the faith. They see a deeper worship and devotion in the prayers and hymns of the early church. And they believe that the writings of the early church can shed new light on their understanding of Scripture. But where and how do we begin? Our first encounter with the writings of the church fathers may seem like visiting a far country where the language, assumptions, concerns and conclusions are completely unfamiliar to us. In Reading Scripture with the Church Fathers Christopher Hall helps us through this cultural confusion, introducing us to the early church, its unique world, and the sights and sounds of Scripture that are highlighted for them. As Hall points out, the ancient fathers hear music in Scripture where we remain tone-deaf. Despite their occasional eccentricities, theirs is a hearing refined through long listening in song, worship, teaching, meditation and oral reading. And like true masters they challenge and correct our modern assumptions as they invite us to tune our ears to hear the divine melodies of the Bible. Reading Scriptue with the Church Fathers is an exceptional guide. Hall provides a warm, winsome, informative and indispensable introcution to who these leaders and scholars were, how they read and interpreted Scripture, and how we might read Scripture with them for all its worth. Note: Because this ebook is file is large, please allow a little extra time to download after purchase.

This fascinating and lively book provides the first comprehensive discussion of the production, circulation, and use of books in early Christianity. It explores the extent of literacy in early Christian communities; the relation in the early church between oral tradition and written materials; the physical form of early Christian books; how books were produced, transcribed, published, duplicated, and disseminated; how Christian libraries were formed; who read the books, in what circumstances, and to what purposes. Harry Y. Gamble interweaves practical and technological dimensions of the production and use of early Christian books with the social and institutional history of the period. Drawing on evidence from papyrology, codicology, textual criticism, and early church history, as well as on knowledge about the bibliographical practices that characterized Jewish and Greco-Roman culture, he offers a new perspective on the role of books in the first five centuries of the early church.

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“You search the Scriptures, because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness to me.”—John 5:39 It takes some real imagination to go back fifteen or twenty centuries to an age when ordinary people didn’t have Bibles. But if we don’t put in that work, we’ll misunderstand the early Christians completely. The early Christians didn’t live in our world, and their encounters with Scripture happened in one main context: the liturgy. That was where they heard Scripture. And just as important, that was where they heard Scripture interpreted. In How the Fathers Read the Bible: Scripture, Liturgy, and the Early Church, Mike Aquilina takes readers back to the first centuries of Church life to show how the liturgy became the home of—and the interpretative lens for—Scripture. Aquilina shows how, both then and now, Scripture is only understood through the life of the Church—and in particular, through the liturgy.