Table of Contents

List of Figures and Tables
Abbreciations
Notes on Contributors
PART 1 RITUAL THEORY
1: Risto Uro: Introduction: Ritual in the Study of Early Christianity
2: Barry Stephenson: Ritualization and Ritual Invention
3: Barry Stephenson: Ritual as Action, Performance, and Practice
4: Douglas J. Davies: Ritual, Identity, and Emotion
5: Eva Kundtová Klocová and Armin W. Geertz: Ritual and Embodied Cognition
6: Joseph Bulbulia: Ritual and Cooperation
7: István Czachesz: Ritual and Transmission
PART II RITUAL IN THE ANCIENT MEDITERRANEAN WORLD
8: Rubina Raja: Ancient Sanctuaries
9: John S. Kloppenborg: Associations, Guilds, Clubs
10: Fanny Dolansky: Household and Family
11: István Czachesz: Magic
12: Richard S. Ascough: Communal Meals
13: Thomas Kazen: Purification
14: David E. Aune: Prayer
15: Jade B. Weimer: Music
16: Daniel Ullucci: Sacrifice and Votives
17: Laura Feldt: Pilgrimage and Festivals
18: Martti Nissinen: Divination
19: Luter H. Martin: Initiation
20: Anne Katrine de Hemmer Gudme: Mortuary Rituals
21: Anders Klostergaard Petersen: Ritual and Texts
PART III RITUAL IN NASCENT CHRISTIANITY
22: Richard E. DeMaris: Water Ritual
23: Vojtech Kase: Meal Practices
24: Rikard Roitto: Rituals of Reintegration
25: Gerd Theissen: Ritual and Healing
26: Christian A. Eberhart: Sacrificial Practice and Language
27: Colleen Shantz: Ritual and Religious Experience
28: Susan E. Hylen: Ritual and Emerging Church Hierarchy
29: Pheme Perkins: Ritual and Orthodoxy
PART IV RITUAL IN THE ANCIENT CHURCH
30: Paul F. Bradshaw: Christian Initiation
31: Lizette Larson-Miller: Eucharistic Practices
32: Juliette J. Day: Ritualizing Time
33: L. Edwards Phillips: Early Christian Prayer
34: Robin M. Jensen: Ritual and Early Christian Art
35: Angela Kim harkins and Brian P. Dunkle, SJ: Hymns and Psalmody
36: David G. Hunter: Wedding Rituals and Episcopal Power
37: Juliette J. Day: Women's Rituals and Women's Ritualizing
38: Richard Finn, OP: Fasting as an Ascetic Ritual
39: David L. Eastman: The Cult of Saints
40: Jacob A. latham: Ritual and the Christianization of Urban Space
Index

About the Author

Risto Uro is a Senior Lecturer in New Testament Studies and Chair of the BA programme in Theology and Religious Studies at the University of Helsinki. His research covers such areas as the Synoptic Gospels, the Nag Hammadi Library, and the social history of early Christianity. His publications include Ritual and Christian Beginnings: A Socio-Cognitive Analysis (2016) and Explaining Christian Origins and Early Judaism: Contributions from Cognitive and
Social Science (co-edited with Petri Luomanen; 2007). Juliette J. Day is Docent and University Lecturer in Church History in the Faculty of Theology, University of Helsinki, and Senior Research Fellow in Early
Christian Liturgy at Blackfriars Hall, University of Oxford. Her research focusses on early Christian liturgy, especially that of Jerusalem/Palestine in late antiquity, and on the interpretation of ancient and contemporary liturgical texts. Her publications include The Baptismal Liturgy of Jerusalem (2007), Reading the Liturgy (2014), Early Roman Liturgy to 600 (co-edited with Marcus Vinzent; 2014), and A Guide to the Study of Liturgy and Worship (co-edited
with Benjamin Gordon-Taylor, 2013). Richard E. DeMaris is Senior Research Professor of New Testament Studies at Valparaiso University and has served as the Catholic Biblical Association Visiting Professor to the Pontifical Biblical
Institute in Rome. He is a research associate of the Nordic Project on Ritual and the Emergence of Early Christian Religion and was a staff member of the Ohio State University Excavations at Isthmia, Greece, in the 1990s. His publications on ritual include Early Christian Ritual Life (co-edited with Jason Lamoreaux and Steven Muir 2018), and The New Testament in Its Ritual World (2008). Rikard Roitto is Docent and University Lecturer of Biblical Studies, New Testament, at
Stockholm School of Theology. In his research, he integrates historical-critical methods with social, psychological and cognitive sciences to understand early Christian texts and communities. His research interests include
social identity, norms, rituals of penance and forgiveness, conflict resolution, and baptism in early Christianity. He has written several articles on ritual practices of reproof, repentance, penance, intercession for forgiveness and reintegration of deviant group members in early Christianity.

Reviews

This new Oxford Handbook offers a wealth of information regarding early Christian ritual; pastors, teachers, academics and others are bound to find something of use and interest within these pages. ...The handbook is well written and well designed and will be beneficial to a variety of readers. Clergy and educators alike will find helpful and accessible materials for study, whatever their interests--whether sacraments, prayer, music, healing, or parachurch rituals.
*Allie Utley, Interpretation: A Journal of Bible and Theology*