Educating People of Faith; Exploring the History of Jewish and Christian Communities

Van Engen, John

ISBN 10: 0802849369 / ISBN 13: 9780802849366

Published by William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, Grand Rapids, 2004

About this Item

xiv, 352p., original stiff printed wrappers.

Seller Inventory # 054885

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Educating People of Faith; Exploring the History of Jewish and Christian Communities
• Publisher: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, Grand Rapids
• Publication Date: 2004
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0802849369
• ISBN 13: 9780802849366
• Binding: Soft cover
• Edition: 1st Printing.

About this title

Synopsis

A much-needed addition to the emerging literature on the formative power of religious practices, Educating People of Faith creates a vivid portrait of the lived practices that shaped the faith of Jews and Christians in synagogues and churches from antiquity up to the seventeenth century.

This significant book is the work of Jewish, Roman Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant scholars who wished to discover and describe how Jews and Christians through history have been formed in religious ways of thinking and acting. Rather than focusing solely on either intellectual or social life, the authors all use the concept of "practices" as they attend to the embodied, contextual character of religious formation. Their studies of religious figures, community life, and traditional practices such as preaching, sacraments, and catechesis are colorful, detailed, and revealing. The authors are also careful to cover the nature of religious education across all social levels, from the textual formation of highly literate rabbis and monks engaged in Scripture study to the local formation of illiterate medieval Christians for whom the veneration of saints' shrines, street performances of religious dramas, and public preaching by wandering preachers were profoundly formative.

Educating People of Faith will benefit scholars and teachers desiring a fuller perspective on how lived practices have historically formed people in religious faith. It will also be useful to practical theologians and pastors who wish to make the resources of the past available to practitioners in the present.

About the Author

Andrew V. Tackes Professor of History at the University of Notre Dame. He is also the author of Rupert of Deutz, winner of the John Nicholas Brown Prize, and Devotio Moderna."