From the very beginning Christianity was a religion of booksa lived, but also a written faith. The essays in this collection focus on the ways in which books were produced, used, treasured, and conceptualized in the early Christian centuries (AD 100600). During this crucial period, just after the New Testament writings were composed, Christianity grew from the religion of a tiny minority in the eastern Roman Empire to the religion of the empire itself, and beyond. To no small extent, this success was based on the power of its books.

With increasing interest in early Egyptian (Coptic) Christianity, this volume offers an important collection of essays about Coptic language, literature, and social history by some of the finest authors in the field. The essays range broadly through the areas of Coptic language and literature, examining the origins and history of the Coptic community in its formative years. The Jewish content and connections of earliest Christianity in Egypt are explored, as is the survival of pagan religion in a later, increasingly Christian world. Studies of Egyptian monasticism range from investigations of...

Based on a multi-year consultation in the Society of Biblical Literature, The Bible and Early Trinitarian Theology brings new insights to the relationship between patristic exegesis and current strategies of biblical interpretation, specifically with reference to the doctrine of the Trinity.