Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Toto · 04-11-2013, 08:11 AM

New book on women in early Christianity to be published later this year:

Band of Angels: The Forgotten World of Early Christian Women (or via: amazon.co.uk) by Kate Cooper

Quote:

In Band of Angels, Kate Cooper tells the surprising story of early Christianity from the woman's point of view. Though they are often forgotten, women from all walks of life played an invaluable role in Christianity's growth to become a world religion.

Peasants, empresses, and independent businesswomen contributed what they could to an emotional revolution unlike anything the ancient world had ever seen. By mobilizing friends and family to spread the word from household to household, they created a wave of change not unlike modern 'viral' marketing.

For the most part, women in the ancient world lived out their lives almost invisibly in a man's world. Piecing together their history from the few contemporary accounts that have survived requires painstaking detective work. Yet a careful re-reading of ancient sources yields a vivid picture, and shows how daily life and the larger currents of history shaped one another.

Her website: http://kateantiquity.com

Quote:

Kate is currently holder of a Leverhulme Trust Major Research Fellowship (2012-15), for a project on The Early Christian Martyr Acts: A New Approach to Ancient Heroes of Resistance.

Chili · 04-11-2013, 10:48 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Toto

New book on women in early Christianity to be published later this year:

Band of Angels: The Forgotten World of Early Christian Women (or via: amazon.co.uk) by Kate Cooper

Quote:

In Band of Angels, Kate Cooper tells the surprising story of early Christianity from the woman's point of view. Though they are often forgotten, women from all walks of life played an invaluable role in Christianity's growth to become a world religion.

Peasants, empresses, and independent businesswomen contributed what they could to an emotional revolution unlike anything the ancient world had ever seen. By mobilizing friends and family to spread the word from household to household, they created a wave of change not unlike modern 'viral' marketing.

For the most part, women in the ancient world lived out their lives almost invisibly in a man's world. Piecing together their history from the few contemporary accounts that have survived requires painstaking detective work. Yet a careful re-reading of ancient sources yields a vivid picture, and shows how daily life and the larger currents of history shaped one another.

Her website: http://kateantiquity.com

Quote:

Kate is currently holder of a Leverhulme Trust Major Research Fellowship (2012-15), for a project on The Early Christian Martyr Acts: A New Approach to Ancient Heroes of Resistance.

Nice point of view that by extension still today holds the future of every civilization to unfold via 'the woman' as females in the generic sense.

So now, lets blame the women when things go wrong?

mountainman · 04-12-2013, 09:32 PM

A Forgotten World - 17 February, 2013 · by kateantiquity ·

Quote:

Over the past few weeks I have been copy-editing the manuscript for BAND OF ANGELS, which is due out in the UK from Atlantic Press in early August, and in the US from Overlook Press in late September.

The image is drawn from Andrea dal Sarto’s Annunciation. I love the way the designer has cropped the painting to lead your eye into the background, to capture the idea of a forgotten world in the distance.

I have been thinking quite a bit about the idea of forgotten worlds lately. So much of what I read about early Christianity just doesn’t make any sense to me these days.

I have spent so much energy trying to imagine my way into ancient households and how women would have thought about what they heard from their friends and family about it.

There is so much we don’t know about them, but I do think I can say with certainty that they did not see things in the same way their menfolk did!

In the absence of evidence the study of early Christianity certainly requires imagination.

Martyrs: Re-assessing the Early Christian Martyr Acts: A new approach to ancient heroes of resistance

Quote:

The early Christian martyrs were–and remain–heroes of the Christian faith, but their importance to the early churches has yet to be accounted for in a way that has relevance to modern debates about religion and violence.

////

Our main aim will be to understand when and why the martyr acts genre came into being.

Since the time of the first church historian Eusebius of Caesarea (d. 339), it has been believed
that the martyr acts were a contemporary reaction, like the apologies, to the second-century
persecutions. On this view, the ‘acts’ genre does not need to be accounted for: it is simply the
result of a ‘natural’ need to commemorate the dead.

But if the genre only emerged later, after 250, then the fact that
its distinctive character requires explanation becomes harder to ignore.

The starting-point for a new view of the martyr acts will be to consider
the interests and agendas of Eusebius. One of the most interesting aspects
of his Ecclesiastical History is his view of the early Christian movement
as characterised by communal asceticism

Enter stage right the Therapeutae and the Essenes.

Eusebius had a regimented command of his sources.

εὐδαιμονία | eudaimonia

Chili · 04-13-2013, 05:56 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mountainman

In the absence of evidence the study of early Christianity certainly requires imagination.

Martyrs: Re-assessing the Early Christian Martyr Acts: A new approach to ancient heroes of resistance

Quote:

The early Christian martyrs were–and remain–heroes of the Christian faith, but their importance to the early churches has yet to be accounted for in a way that has relevance to modern debates about religion and violence.

////

Our main aim will be to understand when and why the martyr acts genre came into being.

Since the time of the first church historian Eusebius of Caesarea (d. 339), it has been believed
that the martyr acts were a contemporary reaction, like the apologies, to the second-century
persecutions. On this view, the ‘acts’ genre does not need to be accounted for: it is simply the
result of a ‘natural’ need to commemorate the dead.

But if the genre only emerged later, after 250, then the fact that
its distinctive character requires explanation becomes harder to ignore.

The starting-point for a new view of the martyr acts will be to consider
the interests and agendas of Eusebius. One of the most interesting aspects
of his Ecclesiastical History is his view of the early Christian movement
as characterised by communal asceticism

Enter stage right the Therapeutae and the Essenes.

Eusebius had a regimented command of his sources.

εὐδαιμονία | eudaimonia

What Christians believe must be a lie because a Christian is gnostic and does not believe and will not have followers as gnostic who only knows himself . . . and knows his neighbor as himself because a pupil cannot be greater than his master, still, as it is his own reign of God that he is learned in.

So the Essene is OK, like Enoch was, but he will have no followers like Moses did to lead them all astray, as did the rat-catcher of Hamlin 'then' and Billy here just lately 'now.'

Just go to John where Thomas exclaimed: "My Lord and MY God" when all doubt was removed by way of understanding, wherein Peter and Thomas are twins in faith and doubt and neither can exist without the other in the gnostic mind.

And then of course notice that Peter was defrocked on his next [post resurrection] fishing trip to say just that, and of course is why they could not catch a thing all night. Point blank: A Christian has no faith left to understand or he will be the walking-talking lie unto himself. . . like a bottle maybe thinking he is wine himself because people are always after him.

The notice that Jesus said: Cast your nets on the other side of the boat, which here now means the TOL (where woman is home to rule as per Gen.3:6), and there you will catch those big ones you are looking for, and it is these big one that they moved to Rome and there crowned 'the woman' "queen of all" in thanksgiving to her 'utility' as the source of knowledge behind all that is.

Notice here that she is not the fish they caught as the womb of every living thing. . . and so is the thinginess of every-thing to even the horseness of a horse, and so also is that which makes man in the image of God now as Lord God himself.

And notice that I use the word 'utility' as the womb of all that found existence in Being here now identified as man via the son, and hence She deserves a name and so we call her Mary . . . who only takes things to heart and does not say to commandeer.

And to study the "Book of Martyrs" does not provide the answer but is like ointment only to sooth the pain within.

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