Review of Spittler (ed.), The narrative self in early Christianity

BYRN MAYR CLASSICAL REVIEW: The narrative self in early Christianity: essays in honor of Judith Perkins.

Judith Perkins, Janet E. Spittler, The narrative self in early Christianity: essays in honor of Judith Perkins. Writings from the Greco-Roman world supplement series, 15. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2019. xi, 245 p.. ISBN 9781628372519 $40.00 (pb).

Review by
David Brakke, The Ohio State University. brakke.2@osu.edu

Excerpt:

This collection of twelve essays honors Perkins by exploring the ways that ancient narratives construct identities, develop ideas, and circulate through culture. The essays are framed by an Introduction that discusses the significance of Perkins’s work and by a Bibliography of the honoree’s publications through 2018. With the exception of MacDonald’s chapter on Judith, all the essays focus on early Christian works and traditions. Five of the twelve study or take as their point of departure the Acts of Thomas and its “spin-off,” so to speak, Acts of Thomas and his Wonderworking Skin. Together they validate Perkins’s view that narrative can function in powerful ways to form and disseminate religious selves and concepts.

I didn't know that there was an Acts of Thomas and his Wonderworking Skin.

Cross-file under Old Testament Apocrypha Watch and New Testament Apocrypha Watch.

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