Roland Boer

Christina Petterson

Economic Realities in the First-Century World, Roland Boer and Christina Petterson investigate economic realities in the first century. Particular Christian writings responded to the economic instability and changing social relationships of a Roman world in crisis as slavery expanded, transforming the agricultural economy so that slave estates could supply the needs of the polis. Theoretically flexible and responsive to historical data, Boer and Petterson's use of Régulation theory takes seriously the centrality of agriculture in the ancient world and finds economic instability to be the norm, except for brief episodes of imposed stability. Book jacket.

A New Economic Framework for Early Christianity

Time of Troubles

Felicity Jensz

This book brings together interdisciplinary scholars from history, theology, folklore, ethnology and meteorology to examine how David Cranz’s Historie von Grönland (1765) resonated in various disciplines, periods and countries. Collectively the contributors demonstrate the reach of the book beyond its initial purpose as a record of missionary work, and into secular and political fields beyond Greenland and Germany. The chapters also reveal how the book contributed to broader discussions and conceptualizations of Greenland as part of the Atlantic world. The interdisciplinary scope of the volume allows for a layered reading of Cranz’s book that demonstrates how different meanings could be drawn from the book in different contexts and how the book resonated throughout time and space. It also makes the broader argument that the construction of the Artic in the eighteenth century broadened our understanding of the Atlantic.

Legacies of David Cranz's 'Historie von Grönland' (1765)

In The Moravian Brethren in a Time of Transition Christina Petterson combines archival analysis with socio-economic change to demonstrate the importance of the Protestant sect, the Moravian Brethren, as an example of the reconfiguration of communities in early capitalism.

A Socio-Economic Analysis of a Religious Community in Eighteenth-Century Saxony

The Moravian Brethren in a Time of Transition

The idea of writing plays a central role in John. Apart from the many references to scriptural texts, John emphasizes the role of writing in the inscription on the cross and in its own production. Petterson's From Tomb to Text examines what this means for the understanding of the Johannine Jesus in two interrelated ways. First Petterson takes these claims to revelation through writing seriously, noting the immense effort expended by biblical scholars in order to dismiss them and to produce a canonically palatable John. With few exceptions, Johannine studies have consistently attempted to domesticate or tame John's book through reference to, and in harmony with, an externalized historical reality or with a synoptic pattern. Second, the study suggests alternative ways of understanding John once this synoptic compulsion has been dissolved. Petterson argues that John's Jesus is unacceptable to the project for the recovery of 'Early Christianity' as imagined in Johannine research over the last 70 years or so. Instead, she shows how John produces itself as the vehicle of Jesus' revelation in place of a body. This takes place through its use of writing, its characteristic use of verbs and syntax, and its mode of revelation. The book thus situates John in a context that does not begin with, and thus attempts to be, unconstrained by fixed categories of Christ, gnosticism, Eucharist, body and flesh, and shows how such readings curtail the fullness of the text in favour of a more familiar earthly Jesus. Petterson concludes by outlining ways in which John can be read if these containment strategies are disregarded.

Christina Petterson

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