Religious Rivalries in the Early Roman Empire and the Rise of Christianity discusses the diverse cultural destinies of early Christianity, early Judaism, and other ancient religious groups as a question of social rivalry.
The book is divided into three main sections. The first section debates the degree to which the category of rivalry adequately names the issue(s) that must be addressed when comparing and contrasting the social “success” of different religious groups in antiquity. The second is a critical assessment of the common modern category of “mission” to describe the inner dynamic of such a process; it discusses the early Christian apostle Paul, the early Jewish historian Josephus, and ancient Mithraism. The third section of the book is devoted to “the rise of Christianity,” primarily in response to the similarly titled work of the American sociologist of religion Rodney Stark.
While it is not clear that any of these groups imagined its own success necessarily entailing the elimination of others, it does seem that early Christianity had certain habits, both of speech and practice, which made it particularly apt to succeed (in) the Roman Empire.
- Bibliography, etc. Note
- Includes bibliographical references:p. 279-304
- Control Number Identifier
- CaOOCEL
- Dewey Decimal Classification Number
- 270.1
- General Note
- Includes indexes Issued as part of the desLibris books collection
- ISBN
- 0889204497 9780889205369
- LCCN
- BL96
- LCCN Item number
- R46 2006eb
- Modifying agency
- CaBNVSL
- Original cataloging agency
- CaOONL
- Physical Description | Extent
- 1 electronic text (xvi, 324 p.)
- Published in
- Canada
- Publisher or Distributor Number
- CaOOCEL
- Rights
- Access restricted to authorized users and institutions
- System Control Number
- (CaBNVSL)slc00204544 (OCoLC)244764482 (CaOOCEL)407359
- System Details Note
- Mode of access: World Wide Web
- Transcribing agency
- CaOONL
Table of Contents
- Cover 1
- Contents 6
- Acknowledgments 8
- Preface 10
- Abbreviations 16
- Part 1: Rivalries? 18
- 1. Ancient Religious Rivalries and the Struggle for Success: Christians, Jews, and Others in the Early Roman Empire 20
- 2. The Declining Polis? Religious Rivalries in Ancient Civic Context 38
- 3. Rivalry and Defection 68
- 4. Is the Pagan Fair Fairly Dangerous? Jewish-Pagan Relations in Antiquity 90
- 5. My Rival, My Fellow: Conceptual and Methodological Prolegomena to Mapping Inter-Religious Relations in 2nd- and 3rd-Century CE Levantine Society Using the Evidence of Early Rabbinic Texts 102
- Part 2: Mission? 124
- 6. “The Field God Has Assigned”: Geography and Mission in Paul 126
- 7. The Contra Apionem in Social and Literary Context: An Invitation to Judean Philosophy 156
- 8. On Becoming a Mithraist: New Evidence for the Propagation of the Mysteries 192
- Part 3: Rise? 212
- 9. Rodney Stark and “The Mission to the Jews” 214
- 10. “Look How They Love One Another”: Early Christian and Pagan Care for the Sick and Other Charity 230
- 11. The Religious Market of the Roman Empire: Rodney Stark and Christianity’s Pagan Competition 250
- 12. Why Christianity Succeeded (in) the Roman Empire 270
- Works Cited 296
- Ancient Sources Index 322
- Ancient Names Index 335
- Modern Names Index 339
