From Synagogue to Church

Public Services and Offices in the Earliest Christian Communities

Specificaties
Gebonden, 396 blz. | Engels
Cambridge University Press | e druk, 1992
ISBN13: 9780521418928
Rubricering
Cambridge University Press e druk, 1992 9780521418928
Verwachte levertijd ongeveer 9 werkdagen

Samenvatting

This important work challenges an entrenched scholarly consensus, that at the beginning it was inspired leaders - not ordained officers - who dominated the church. James Burtchaell illustrates that the traditional argument on behalf of clerical authority had read history backwards, and found the apostles to be the first bishops. In this study, Burtchaell reads history forwards, and demonstrates that first century Jews knew only one form of community organization, that of the synagogue. The three-level structure of offices in the synagogue - president, elders, and assistant - emerges, in the author's estimation, as the most plausible antecedent for the Christian offices which stand forth clearly in the second century. Burtchaell's conclusion is that ordained office is a foundational element in Christianity, but that, while the officers presided from the first, they rarely led. Thus, while Jesus' brother James presided as the ordained chief of the mother church in Jerusalem, it was Peter - Jesus' inspired veteran disciple - whose voice carried most authority. This revisionist historical account of Christian origins creatively subverts the established positions on church order, and thus opens up the arguments to new and larger conclusions.

Specificaties

ISBN13:9780521418928
Taal:Engels
Bindwijze:Gebonden
Aantal pagina's:396

Inhoudsopgave

Preface; 1. The Reformation: challenge to an old consensus; 2. The nineteenth century: a new consensus is formulated; 3. The early twentieth century: the consensus is disputed; 4. The last fifty years: the consensus restated, rechallenged, reused; 5. A search for a new hypothesis; 6. Jewish community organization in the later Second Temple period; 7. The officers of the synagogue; 8. Community organization in the early Christian settlement; 9. A conclusion; Index auctorum; Index locorum.

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        From Synagogue to Church