historical importance to the books of the New Testament.Each book of the New Testament is presented in the NRSV, the most widely accepted version in university classrooms today. The Reader also supplies up-to-date translations of the Gospel of Thomas, the Didache, the Letter of Barnabas, 1 Clement, and the letters of Ignatius.Broader issues affecting the treatment of these texts open the six sections of literature. Lead articles discuss pseudonymity, church tradition, synoptic sources, epistles as documents, conflicting doctrines, and originating events.Introductions to each individual work discuss the date and place of composition, authorship, audience, basic themes, literary features, and the Jewish and Hellenistic contexts, and they suggest further readings in the secondary literature. Generous notes illumine specific historical, lexical, and interpretive issues.The Early Christian Reader thus offers an objective, informed entree into the complex world of the earliest Christian literature. Useful appendixes, maps, and charts make this an ideal text for the university or college classroom.

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