According to the traditional consensus of scholarship the second century plays a pivotal role for the history of Christianity: In this century - so the story goes - Christianity fully developed into a religious tradition with a canon of holy scriptures, a creed and a hierarchy of offices. The scholarly reconstruction of second century Christianity became, in effect, a 'grand narrative' that was meant to legitimize or delegitimize the contemporary use of scripture, to explain the particular emphasis of various theological orthodoxies and to defend or attack the contemporary ecclesiastical settlement. The article describes how in modern research this scholarly consensus is slowly disintengrating: The 'grand narrative' suffers a loss of plausibility equally surreptious and dramatic, thus making room for the description of a rich and complex landscape of theological discourses and the discovery of the matrix and 'laboratory' of ancient Christian theology.

Enthalten in:
Theologische Literaturzeitung; 2002/Nr.3 Monatsschrift für das gesamte Gebiet der Theologie und Religionswissenschaft (2002)

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Serie / Reihe: Theologische Literaturzeitung

Personen: Löhr, Winrich Löhr, Winrich A.

Schlagwörter: Christentum Forschung Antike 2. Jahrhundert