Constructing Early Christian Families: Family as Social Reality and Metaphor Book

Why did the first Christians call each other "brothers" and not "fathers" and "sons"? Authored by a group of international scholars, the essays in Constructing Early Christian Families brings the study of family into the world of Greco-Roman antiquity, exploring the use of family terms as metaphors for relations between members of Christian communities. Constructing Early Christian Families questions the notion of "family" in early Christianity, using social models such as household and kinship to study early Christian families within the larger context of the Greco-Roman world. The functions of familial metaphors and the social function of these metaphors--such as the exclusion of women from "brotherhood"-- are examined. Constructing Early Christian Families shows the complex picture of family relations and the manifold attitudes toward "family" in the first Christian generations.Read More