{"product_id":"priests-of-my-people-levitical-paradigms-for-early-christian-ministers-von-bryan-a-stewart","title":"Priests of My People","description":"This book offers an innovative examination of the question: why did early Christians begin calling their ministerial leaders «priests» (using the terms hiereus\/sacerdos)? Scholarly consensus has typically suggested that a Christian «priesthood» emerged either from an imitation of pagan priesthood or in connection with seeing the Eucharist as a sacrifice over which a «priest» must preside. This work challenges these claims by exploring texts of the third and fourth century where Christian bishops and ministers are first designated «priests»: Tertullian and Cyprian of Carthage, Origen of Alexandria, Eusebius of Caesarea, and the church orders Apostolic Tradition and Didascalia Apostolorum. Such an examination demonstrates that the rise of a Christian ministerial priesthood grew more broadly out of a developing «religio-political ecclesiology». As early Christians began to understand themselves culturally as a unique polis in their own right in the Greco-Roman world, they also saw themselves theologically and historically connected with ancient biblical Israel. This religio-political ecclesiology, sharpened by an emerging Christian material culture and a growing sense of Christian «sacred space», influenced the way Christians interpreted the Jewish Scriptures typologically. In seeing the nation of Israel as a divine nation corresponding to themselves, Christians began appropriating the Levitical priesthood as a figure or «type» of the Christian ministerial office. Such a study helpfully broadens our understanding of the emergence of a Christian priesthood beyond pagan imitation or narrow focus on the sacrificial nature of the Eucharist, and instead offers a more comprehensive explanation in connection with early Christian ecclesiology.\u003cdiv class=\"aw-variant-hidden-subtitle-div\" id=\"aw-variant-subtitle-9781433127618\"\u003e\u003ch3\u003eLevitical Paradigms for Early Christian Ministers\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Libri","offers":[{"title":"Hardcover - 9781433127618","offer_id":30273768554589,"sku":"9781433127618","price":98.25,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0940\/0622\/files\/73461_3340cdfa-d722-4978-91b5-2d673436d515.jpg?v=1783397334","url":"https:\/\/shop.autorenwelt.de\/products\/priests-of-my-people-levitical-paradigms-for-early-christian-ministers-von-bryan-a-stewart","provider":"Autorenwelt Shop","version":"1.0","type":"link"}