The Tapestry of Early Christian Discourse: Rhetoric, Society and Ideology

by Vernon K. Robbins

This study establishes a concept of culture and then combines it with Geertz' anthropological concept of thick description. Subsequently, the relation of texts to society and culture is discussed. In this manner, multiple methods of interpretation are used in an organized and programmatic way, allowing the reader insights into the development of early Christianity. In this study, Vernon Robbins expounds and develops his system of socio-rhetorical criticism, bringing together social-scientific and literary-critical approaches to explore early Christanity. This book investigates Christianity as a cultural phenomenon, and treats its canonical texts as ideological constructs.

296 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1996

About the author

Vernon K. Robbins is Professor of New Testament and Comparative Sacred Texts in the Department and Graduate Division of Religion at Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia. He was appointed Winship Distinguished Research Professor in the Humanities in 2001. In 1984, his Jesus the Teacher: A Socio-Rhetorical Interpretation of Mark launched socio-rhetorical criticism in New Testament studies. His two most recent books, The Tapestry of Early Christian Discourse and Exploring the Texture of Texts, present this approach in the form of programmatic strategies for interpreting the inner texture, intertexture, social and cultural texture, ideological texture, and sacred texture of texts. A Festschrift in his honor, Fabrics of Discourse, contains essays that apply insights of socio-rhetorical interpretation.

In 1983-84, Prof. Robbins was a Fulbright Professor at the University of Trondheim, Norway. During the summer of 1996, he was a Human Research Science Council Visiting Scholar in South Africa. Prof. Robbins is General Editor of Emory Studies in Early Christianity and co-chair of the Socio-Rhetorical Interpretation seminar in the Studiorum Novi Testamenti Societas. He is widely published in national and international journals.