Kategoria BISAC: Religion >> Christian Rituals & Practice - General

Recognizing the social meaning of food and meals in Greco-Roman culture and, in particular, the social meaning of idol-food, is an integral part of understanding the impact of Paul's instructions to the Christian community at Corinth regarding the consumption of idol-food. Shared meals were a central feature of social intercourse in Greco-Roman culture. Meals and food were markers of social status, and participation at meals was the main means of establishing and maintaining social relations. Participation in public rites (and sharing the meals which ensued) was a requirement of holding...

Phillips Brooks, author of the carol O Little Town of Bethlehem, was the rector of the Trinity Episcopal Church in Boston for 22 years and the Bishop of Massachusetts for 15 months until his death in 1893. This volume in the Great American Orators series focuses on Brooks' oratorical style and the public's response to his rhetoric. Chesebrough provides a biographical sketch of Brooks' life emphasizing the development and use of his oratorical skills and placing him within the secular and ecclesiastical contexts of his times. Attention is given to Brooks' development as a public speaker and...

It is not a lack of training in the art of rhetoric that accounts for the ineffectiveness of preaching within Christian churches. More significant is the lack of adequate theological foundations. While recognizing the great contribution that neo-orthodoxy and the "dialectical imagination" have made, Hilkert's major contribution is a scholarly examination of the resources of the "sacramental imagination."This examinations shifts the focus from the divine-human gap and the sinfulness of humanity to the grace discovered in everyday life, and the word entrusted to the entire community of...

Until recently, the figure of the medieval anchorite and the underlying ideological concepts that framed her day-to-day existence have escaped detailed examination, despite the anchorite s importance to the study of medieval culture. This collection brings together leading scholars in the field of gender and anchoritic studies in order to examine anchoritic enclosure from a variety of different perspectives. In so doing, "Anchorites, Wombs, and Tombs" offers illuminating conclusions about how the phenomenon of anchoritism was affected by, and in turn, influenced contemporary notions of...

A renowned scholar and musician presents a new and innovative exploration of the beginnings of Western musical art. Beginning in the time of the New Testament, when Christians began to develop an art of ritual singing with an African and Asian background, Christopher Page traces the history of music in Europe through the development of Gregorian chant--a music that has profoundly influenced the way Westerners hear--to the invention of the musical staff, regarded as the fundamental technology of Western music. Page places the history of the singers who performed this music against the...

This collection of essays is a tribute to Rachel Elior's decades of teaching, scholarship and mentoring. If a Festschrift reflects the individuality of the honoree, then this volume offers insights into the scope of Rachel Elior's interests and scholarly achievements in the study of the Dead Sea Scrolls, Jewish apocalypticism, magic, and mysticism from the Second Temple period to the later rabbinic and Hekhalot developments. The majority of articles included in the volume deal with Jewish and Christian apocalyptic and mystical texts constituting the core of experiential dimension...