Robert Grant draws upon his fifty years of experience dealing with the correlation of early Christianity and classical culture to demonstrate that Christian "heretics" were the first to apply literacy criticism to Christian books. He shows that the heretics' methods were the same as those of pagan contemporaries, and that literary criticism derived from the Hellenistic schools. Literary criticism was later used by famous orthodox leaders, and, as time passed, orthodox critics increasingly found that these methods could serve them well. Grant supports his argument by focusing on principal...

This study first examines the New Testament origins of second-century thinking: the humanity of Christ in biblical Christology, including the infancy narratives and the divinity of Christ. The book then deals with Gnostic Christologies of the early second century, interprets the christological thinking of the apostolic fathers and Justin Martyr, discusses the Jewish Christian Christology of Theophilus, shows how disagreements were dealt within developing concepts of orthodoxy versus heresy, and explores how Irenaeus's Christology was worked out as a basis for molding an orthodox consensus....

Though the apostle Paul wrote letters to many of the churches he founded, none of his extant letters reveal more about him, his missionary activity, and the community of faith he sought to pastor than 1 Corinthians. In 1 Corinthians, Paul tried to influence--even control--the church in the context of a city that had lasting memories of Greek democracy but the present realities of a Roman proconsul. This volume highlights Paul as apostle, missionary, and pastor against the backdrop of the Greco-Roman culture, economics, and politics.