Who Are the People of God?: Early Christian Models of Community [Hardcover]

Professor Howard Clark Kee (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 25, 1995

In this provocative book, an eminent scholar examines the complex sociocultural factors that shaped Judaism and early Christianity, analyzing cardinal Judaic and Christian texts and the cultural communities in which they were written.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

Kee promises a synthesis of scholarly research that runs counter to "contemporary attempts to discover (invent?) a simple conceptual core out of which Christianity developed." He delivers on both counts. He combines sociologically informed reflection on ancient history and contemporary historiography with a carefully articulated description of five models of community--these five models having developed in the context of formative Judaism and early Christianity, both of which drew freely on the Hellenistic world in which they emerged for philosophical frameworks within which to answer the question posed by Kee's title. Kee is not willing to limit philosophical influences to a single school but points to Stoicism, Cynicism, Neoplatonism, and apocalypticism as influences on ideas of community that gained prominence in the early church and in rabbinic Judaism after the destruction of the temple. He returns at the end to the question of Christianity's "core" in a critical note on priority in the Gospel tradition. That note locates his work in the ongoing conversation about Christian origins and, together with the body of the text, makes this an especially lucid and important contribution to that conversation. Steve Schroeder

Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: Yale University Press (January 25, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0300059523
• ISBN-13: 978-0300059526
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.3 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,300,049 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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