DESCRIPTION
In the tradition of
The First Urban Christians by Wayne Meeks, this book explores the relationship between the earliest Christians and the city environment. Experts in classics, early Christianity, and human geography analyze the growth, development, and self-understanding of the early Christian movement in urban settings.
The book's contributors first look at how the urban physical, cultural, and social environments of the ancient Mediterranean basin affected the ways in which early Christianity progressed. They then turn to how the earliest Christians thought and theologized in their engagement with cities. With a rich variety of expertise and scholarship,
The Urban World and the First Christians is an important contribution to the understanding of early Christianity.
CONTRIB UTORS:| Piotr Ashwin- Siejkowski | Ian Paul |
| Cédric Brélaz | Volker Rabens |
| Paul Cloke | Anders Runesson |
| David W. J. Gill | Matthew Sleeman |
| David G. Horrell | Joan Taylor |
| Chris Keith | Paul R. Trebilco |
| Anthony Le Donne | Steve Walton |
| Jutta Leonhardt-Balzer | Wei Hsien Wan |
| Helen Morris |
REVIEWS
Todd D. Still
— Truett Seminary, Baylor University
“What do you get when you bring together human geographers, classicists, and Neutestamentlers to consider how ancient cities impacted the growth and thought of early Christian communities? Taken together, and along with the work of skilled editors and a strong press, you get The Urban World and the First Christians—a fascinating collection of learned, transdisciplinary essays by leading scholars in their respective fields. These substantive studies will shape your thinking about the urban landscape of the earliest Christ-followers and will lead you to think afresh about Christianity, whether ancient or modern, as an urban phenomenon.”
Peter Oakes
— University of Manchester
“This book brings together an excellent collection of New Testament experts and historians to make fruitful inroads into a range of significant issues in the study of the urban context of early Christianity. Especially valuable is the juxtaposition of studies of particular cities and texts with studies of the idea of city among early Christians and their contemporaries. This will undoubtedly be a key resource in the field.”
The Catholic Biblical Quarterly
“A rich, accessible, and critical collection.”
Theology
“Overall, this is an excellent collection of essays that, with its marked level of interdisciplinarity, and especially its engagement with theories of place and space, takes the study of urban Christianity to a new level.”