Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Abandoned To Lust: Sexual Slander And Ancient Christianity – By Jennifer Wright Knust [Review Of The Book Abandoned To Lust: Sexual Slander And Ancient Christianity By J. W. Knust], Rubén R. Dupertuis

Religion Faculty Research

The author argues that accusations of sexual depravity in early Christian literature, whatever their historical value, must be placed in the broader context of Greco-Roman rhetorical traditions in which charges of sexual deviance were stock elements of rhetorical slander. The first chapter, “Sexual Slander and Ancient Invective,” shows the degree to which the discourses of status and gender were intertwined in the Greco-Roman world. In this context, accusations of sexual deviance served the construction and maintenance of an elite identity understood as a male who is able to control his passions and avoid excess. In four subsequent chapters she tracks …

Writing And Imitation: Greek Education In The Greco-Roman World, Rubén R. Dupertuis

Religion Faculty Research

The imitation of a handful of accepted literary models lies at the core of the Greco-Roman educational process throughout all of its stages. While at the more advanced levels the relationship to models became more nuanced, the underlying principle remained the imitation of those authors who had achieved greatness. Quintilian explains the rationale as follows:

For there can be no doubt that in art no small portion of our task lies in imitation, since although invention came first and is all-important, it is expedient to imitate whatever has been invented with success. And it is a universal rule of life …

[Review Of The Book Introduction To The New Testament, Vol. 2: History And Literature Of Early Christianity, By H. Koester], Rubén R. Dupertuis

Religion Faculty Research

The publication of this book completes the second edition of Helmut Koester’s important two-volume introduction to early Christian literature and history, published originally in 1982. Like the second edition of the first volume, which appeared in 1995, this edition seeks to make current the now classic and well-known introductory volume, while maintaining its structure and organization. After covering the formation of the canon, text critical issues and an all too brief introduction to methods—only source, form, tradition, narrative and rhetorical criticism are discussed, the latter two being new to this edition—texts are discussed in chronological and geographical sequence, beginning with …