Jesus and Mary Reimagined in Early Christian Literature

Explore the diverse character of emerging Christian narratives This book presents essays that show how prophetic and priestly emphases in Luke and Acts, and emphasis on Jesus’s existence prior to creation in the Gospel of John, are reworked in some second- and third-century Christian literature. Early Christians interpreted and expressed the storylines of Jesus, Mary, and other important figures in ways that created new images and stories. Contributors show the effect of including rhetography, the rhetoric of a text that prompts images and pictures in the mind of a hearer or reader, in interpretation of texts. Features: Readings that attempt to account for the development of richly creative and complicated early Christian traditions Essays bridging New Testament studies and interpretation of Early Christian literature Interpretations that integrate social and rhetorical interpretations