A Feast of Meanings

Eucharistic Theologies from Jesus Through Johannine Circles
Erscheinungsjahr 1994
ISBN: 978-90-04-09949-4
Verlag: Brill

Buch, Englisch, Band 72, 212 Seiten, Format (B × H): 166 mm x 245 mm, Gewicht: 562 g

Reihe: Novum Testamentum, Supplements

The monograph analyses eucharistic texts on the basis of the social practices which generated them. Six stages of ideology are identified.
Jesus himself practised fellowship at meals as celebrations of Israel's purity (stage 1), and later insisted that a pure meal was a better sacrifice than an offering in the Temple (stage 2). The circle of Peter made such meals into covenantal celebrations; Jesus became a new Moses (stage 3). In order to militate against the full participation of non-Jews, the circle of James invented the full identifications with Passover (stage 4). Paul resisted any such limitations (stage 5). The Synoptic tradition accepted the Jacobean chronology, but joined Paul in developing the Hellenistic theme of Jesus as heroic martyr, and in explaining eucharist as a means of effecting solidarity with Jesus (stage 5). The Johannine ideologies transformed the idiom of eucharist by making Jesus into the paschal lamb which is consumed (stage 6).
A conclusion relates the practices identified to the sources behind the Gospels; and shows how practice is key to the meanings of eucharistic texts.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Chilton, Bruce D

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Christentum, Christliche Theologie Bibelwissenschaften
• Geisteswissenschaften Christentum, Christliche Theologie Systematische Theologie

Über Autor(innen)

Bruce Chilton, Ph.D. (1976) in Divinity, Cambridge University (St. John's College) is Bernard Iddings Bell Professor of Religion at Bard College. He is a scholar of early Christianity and Judaism; his publications include The Isaiah Targum (Clark and Glazier, 1987) and The Temple of Jesus (Penn. State, 1992).