Felix culpa : : ritual failure and theological innovation in early Christianity / / by Peter-Ben Smit.

• Superior document: Novum Testamentum, Supplements
• VerfasserIn: Smit, Peter-Ben, 1979-
• Language: English
• Series: Novum Testamentum, Supplements

"In Felix culpa: Ritual Failure and Theological Innovation in Early Christianity, Peter-Ben Smit argues that ritual developments were key to the development of early Christianity. Focusing on rituals that go wrong, he shows precisely how ritual infelicities are a catalyst for reflection upon ritual and their development in terms of their performance as well as the meaning attributed to them. Smit discusses texts from the Pauline epistles and the Gospel of Mark, and provides a chapter on Philo of Alexandria by way of contextualization in the Greco-Roman world. By stressing the importance of ritual, the present book invites a reconsideration of all too doctrinally focused approaches to early Christian communities and identities. It also highlights the embodied and performative character of what being in Christ amounted to two millennia ago"-- Provided by publisher.

Table of Contents

Ritual failure-ritual negotiation-ritual innovation -- Ritual competition and ritual failure in Philo's De vita contemplativa -- Ritual failure and circumcision -- Ritual failure at early Christian meals -- Ritual failure and baptism -- Ritual failure, crucifixion and Empire -- Ritual failure and gender.