Beginnings Of Christianity Research Articles

Christian Beginnings: From Nazareth to Nicaea by Geza Vermes (review)

ANCIENTChristian Beginnings: From Nazareth to Nicaea. By Geza Vermes. (New Haven: Yale University Press. 2013. Pp. xvi, 288. $30.00. ISBN 978-0-300-19160-8.)Geza Vermes, who passed away in May 2013, focused most of his scholarly attention on the Dead Sea Scrolls and on the historical Jesus. Christian Beginnings: From Nazareth to Nicaea was his final book, and in it Vermes endeavors to build upon his work on the historical Jesus through an assessment of how Jesus went from Galilean holy man to the second person of the Trinity at Nicaea in 325. Vermes argues that this metamorphosis developed over two unequal phases. The first phase was the short Jewish phase that lasted from AD 30 to 100, with the Synoptic Gospels, the first twelve chapters of Acts, and the Didache being the texts that correspond to this phase. These texts demonstrate that early Jewish-Christian followers did not view him as divine, but understood Jesus simply to teach total surrender to God in expectation of the imminent arrival of the Kingdom of God. Ss. Paul and John, however, definitively alter perceptions of Jesus. Paul, whose writings were addressed to Gentile rather than Jewish audiences, draws attention to Jesus himself rather than to his message, elevating Jesus to the triumphant Son of God who is the source of universal salvation. John's Jesus bears no resemblance to the charismatic holy man from Galilee, but is turned into a celestial savior through John's appropriation of terminology derived from Plato and Philo. One finds in both Paul and John a harbinger of things to come, for it is during the second phase (the Gentile phase from the early-second century to the Council of Nicaea in 325) that we find Jesus and his religion fundamentally transformed to become that which would have been unrecognizable by Jesus and his first followers. With referthe ence to an array of Christian texts from the second through the fourth centuries, Vermes traces the progressive elevation of the figure of Jesus by Gentile Christians, an elevation that corresponded to the influx of Graeco-Roman ideas and modes of thinking foreign to Judaism. Thus one finds Justin Martyr, for example, initiate and explicate a Christology deeply imbued with Greek philosophical thought, and later thinkers develop an understanding of the identity of Jesus Christ along these lines. Vermes notes in particular the contributions of St. Irenaeus of Lyons, Tertullian, and Origen, the latter representing the summit of pre-Nicene Christian thought. …

이슬람 선교의 걸림돌 이해 ― 1854년 인도 아그라(Agra) 논쟁을 중심으로

India had been opened to Protestant missionary activity by a decree of the British Parliament in 1813. In 1832/1833, non-British missionary agencies were allowed to enter and launch their mission work in British India. The Protestant (mostly British) missionaries were very eager to preach the gospel message and disseminate gospel tracts on the market place. Inevitably, missionaries had clashed with local Muslims. There arose a fear that the beginning of Christian preaching and proselytizing activity in Agra was a threat to the center of Islam on the uneducated Muslims of the city and the surrounding region. Protestant missionary activity was a new phenomenon to the Muslims of north India. Encounters between Indian Muslims and Protestant missionaries in the years following British expansion into the old Mughal heartlands of north India brought about a mode of interaction and conflict between the two parties. This study examines the obstacles in reaching out to the Muslims with a special emphasis on the debate held in Agra, India on April 10-11, 1854. I will attempt to analyze the significance of this Muslim-Christian debate in India and its effects on future Muslim apologetical works. One of the missionaries, Karl Pfander, who was already experienced in Georgia, was circulating Persian and Urdu gospel tracts which criticize Islam and their prophet Muhammad. Kairânawî, together with some of the local Muslims, thought that it was the high time to challenge the aggressive mission activity. The Agra debates marked a turning point in Christian-Muslim apologetics, for it was the first time that Muslim theologians utilized European critical methods to disprove Christian doctrines. Why is the 1854 Agra debate of such significance? Although the Agra debates took place nearly 160 years ago, their impact is still felt today. Both disputants are still well remembered in the Muslim world and have influenced not only the form of modern apologetics, but the modern Muslim view of Christianity as well. Although the debates had been planned to address the topics of the deviation of the Bible, the Trinity, the Quran as the word of God, and the sending of the prophet Muhammad, the debate did not proceed further than the deviation of the Bible. The Islamic polemicists insisted that the Bible had been corrupted and tried to prove this with evidence taken out of the Bible itself and works from Christian authors who most fellow Christian would regard as skeptics or outright unbelievers. The timing of this counterattack was significant because Pfander, with a Pietist background, was either unfamiliar with or extremely hostile to the works of the aforementioned Biblical liberals. By utilizing such findings to undermine Pfander from within the Christian fold, the Muslims were able to declare an easy victory. Interestingly, the Muslims still employ such tactics today to attack Christian beliefs as they did 160 years ago. Therefore, missionaries who are working among Muslims should know the issues of the Agra debate and be prepared to answer the Muslims.

The Worship of Swedish Saints in Poland after the Council of Trent

Po Soborze Trydenckim w wyniku unifikacji ksiąg liturgicznych pomięto w nich wspomnienia wielu świętych czczonych w kościołach lokalnych czy wspólnotach zakonnych. Chcąc zachować ich kult w poszczególnych prowincjach czy zakonach, przygotowywano odpowiednie dodatki do brewiarza i mszału. Nowa księga formularzy Officium Divinum świętych i błogosławionych czczonych na ziemiach Polski ukazała się w 1596 roku w Krakowie i przygotował ją kanonik krakowski Stanisław Sokołowski. W 1605 roku wydrukowano dodatek zawierający formularze mszalne opracowane przez Kaspera z Kleczowa. Na skutek wpływu reformacji w Skandynawii, walk religijnych, zwalczania kultu świętych oraz niszczenia ich relikwii, król Zygmunt III Waza zwrócił się do Stolicy Apostolskiej z prośbą o zezwolenie włączenia świętych szwedzkich do patronału polskiego. Po uzyskaniu zgody Kongregacji Obrzędów w 1616 roku poszczególne diecezje podejmowały decyzje o ich włączeniu do własnego kalendarza liturgicznego. W XVII w. formularze mszalne i brewiarzowe ukazywały się najpierw jako odrębne edycje, a później drukowano je razem z patronałem polskim. Dodatek ten, nie zmieniający się w ciągu wieków, zawierał wspomnienia wielkich świętych Skandynawii, m.in. Eryka, Henryka, Ansgara, Zygfryda, Eschila, Botwida, Olafa, Brygidy i jej córki Katarzyny Szwedzkiej. Pod koniec XIX wieku niektóre diecezje przestały zamieszczać patronów Szwecji (np. Warmia), a ostatnie wspólne wydanie patronału świętych polskich i szwedzkich ukazało się w 1901 roku. Święci stojący u początku chrześcijaństwa w Skandynawii są nadal aktualnymi orędownikami i mogą stać się patronami zjednoczonej Europy.

EARLY CHRISTIAN VALUES IN CULTURAL ENCOUNTER, ZEUS AND THE RAIN, MAMMON AND MODERN MEDICINE MEN

The aim of the article is to revitalize traditional Christian values to prevent them from getting lost. For the Judaeo-Christian tradition, the confession to one living God is the cornerstone of the intra-cultural encounter. For Christianity the relative worth of wealth is an essential principle. Mammon is to be used in view of the future good of humanity. The task of interpreting tradition is a common theological one. In taking care of the poor and the weak, in taking responsibility for them, there is a huge demand on the wealthy and the strong. Bearing in mind that in the beginnings of Christianity the poor and the weak were entrusted to the bishop, there is a huge responsibility on church leadership. Reinterpreting Jesus’ eschatological warnings, the long term dignity of humanity is the touchstone for Christian engagement within the world.

Book Review: Christian Beginnings: From Nazareth to Nicaea

Book Review: Christian Beginnings: From Nazareth to Nicaea

“Fazei isto em memória de mim” (1Cor 11,24) Oração Eucarística: memorial da Páscoa do Senhor Jesus

O presente artigo discute o que é o memorial, passando pelo conceito de memória até sua formulação religiosa na tradição judaica como um ato religioso, cúltico e litúrgico do antigo Israel. Apresenta como esta celebração memorial está presente desde o início do cristianismo e como se estruturou a celebração deste memorial na tradição primitiva dos cristãos. Faz uma análise da estrutura das Orações Eucarísticas e o seu significado teológico e litúrgico. Ao final, apresenta aspectos para uma vivência espiritual e pastoral deste momento celebrativo.

Christian Beginnings. From Nazareth to Nicaea, AD 30-325.

Christian Beginnings. From Nazareth to Nicaea, AD 30-325.

Kim jest Jezus Chrystus dla ruskich i rosyjskich Świętych? Teologiczna analiza Żywotów Świętych św. Dymitra Rostowskiego

Christian hagiography reveals not only the facts of life of individual saints, but first of all, it is a description of the experience of God loving mankind. From the beginning of Christianity, of great importance in building faith, hope and love had had stories about those believers who responded with a particular radicalism for the prevenient love of God in the Trinity of Persons. These stories have been written in various forms of literature. Author in the introductory part of the article introduces into the lives of the saints and their role in the Ruthenian and Russian Orthodoxy. Essentially he focuses on presenting The Menaia edited by St Dimitry Rostovski. This book was published in the years 1711 to 1718 in Old Church Slavonic. At the beginning of the twentieth century, it has been rewritten and translated into Russian. This monumental work appeared in the years 1903-1911 under the title The Lives of the Saints. It has been a rich source of information for researchers from many disciplines. From a theological point of view, the author studied The Lives of the Saints in order to find direct references to the person and teaching of Jesus Christ. For this purpose, he analyzed quotations from the New Testament, especially from the Gospel, referring directly to the Person and teaching of Jesus Christ, as well as the prayers addressed to Him. In his analysis, he searched for answers to the questions: Who is Jesus Christ for the Ruthenian and Russian saints, and what kind of His images predominate in The Lives of the Saints. The first part of the article, on the basis of source texts, indicates personal qualities of Jesus Christ. The Savior has been experienced by the Ruthenian and Russian saints as God who is close to man, the blessed King, the best Lord, the Comforter of the crying, the Light, the merciful God, and the Foundation of all good. The image of Christ as sinless, innocent suffering and merciful shines especially in the devotion of Saints Passion-Bearers Boris and Gleb. In the consciousness of the Ruthenians Christ is not God who condemns the sinners, but God who wants to bring them to a change of heart and holiness. Christ is also the true Physician of souls and bodies. In the second part of the article were shown images of Christ that occur while reading The Lives of the Saints. Some of these images relate to the Gospels, and others have as their bases an existential expression of faith in Jesus Christ. The Saints refer to Earthly life of Jesus by recalling images of Jesus in various situations (the image of Jesus tempted the desert; the image of the merciful Christ, who wants to lead a mind of man mired in spiritual disease to change and salvation; the image of Christ suffering voluntarily for the salvation of man). An important element of the image of Jesus Christ, typified in The Lives of the Saints is a reference to His suffering and death on the cross, which is supplemented by a triumphant image of the Risen Lord, who won the death by His death and gave us eternal life. An interesting part of The Lives of the Saints (attributable to the month of April) is a description of the appearances of Jesus Christ after His resurrection. It shows the primordial light infinitely brighter than sunlight. In the mystical experience of the saints Christ is revealed as the glorious Light radiating with passionate love. It is characteristic for the spiritual experience of Ruthenian and Russian Saints that their Saviour is God who desires for the salvation of all.

Christian Beginnings: From Nazareth to Nicaea AD 30-325

Christian Beginnings: From Nazareth to Nicaea AD 30-325

Prejudice and Christian Beginnings: Investigating Race, Gender, and Ethnicity in Early Christian Studies

Prejudice and Christian Beginnings: Investigating Race, Gender, and Ethnicity in Early Christian Studies

‘That is Best, Which Was First’: Christian Primitivism and the Reformation Church of England, 1548-1722

This essay explores the Church of England's theologico-historical sense of self during the tumultuous period of the ‘long Reformation.’ By taking its claim to be ‘primitive Christianity restored’ seriously it is argued that Church of England polemical apology was guided by Christian primitivism, an ideology shaped by a belief in the theological primacy of the beginning of Christianity. This made it intellectually possible to conceive of a past true, pure Church that should and could be re-formed in the present. In a more speculative vein it is also argued that this primitivism was formative in the Church's self-defining apologetic recourse to Scripture, reason, and tradition.

Prejudice and Christian Beginnings: Investigating Race, Gender, and Ethnicity in Early Christian Studies. Edited by Laura Nasrallah and Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza. Minneapolis: Fortress, 2009. xiv + 319 pp. $26.00 cloth.

Prejudice and Christian Beginnings: Investigating Race, Gender, and Ethnicity in Early Christian Studies. Edited by Laura Nasrallah and Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza. Minneapolis: Fortress, 2009. xiv + 319 pp. $26.00 cloth.

Religion, Literature and the Imagination. Edited by Mark Knight and Louise Lee.

This excellent collection of essays is the product of a conference on religion and literature, and the diversity of the collection reflects this origin. Each contributor brings his or her perspective not only on how religion, literature, and the imagination intersect, but what is meant by each of the three terms, yielding a rich engagement with the subject(s). The essays in the collection are engaging, and the editors have organised them well, to create interesting, often counterintuitive resonances between them. For me, the most surprisingly resonant grouping consists of Arthur Bradley's ‘The Deconstruction of Christianity: From the Hand of God to the Hand of Man’, Louise Lee's ‘Deity in Dispatches: The Crimean Beginnings of Muscular Christianity’, and Jo Carruthers’ ‘Israel Zangwill, Jewish Identity and Visceral Religion’. Although these essays address very different topics, all three are concerned, in some way, with the relation between doing and being. Bradley engages with Derrida's On Touching to suggest that Christianity might be deconstructed by attending to an alternate history of the human hand, one in which the hand is not that which guarantees a human being's ‘privileged status as free, spontaneous, self-moving, affecting and auto-affecting ego’ (p. 53), but, rather, as argued by palaeontologist André Leroi-Gourhan, a tool-wielding appendage which itself creates the human. That is, ‘the brain was not the cause of tool use, language, and so on, but the effect … This means that what makes human beings “human” in the first place is not consciousness, intelligence and so on, but precisely our relation to the (allegedly) nonhuman world of technicity’ (p. 53).

Preface

Preface Michael C. Jordan, Editor As though pointing to the veracity of the claim made by Blessed Cardinal John Henry Newman in The Idea of a University that the circle of knowledge is “mutilated” and in need of reform when theology is dropped from it, there have been several recent claims that in postmodern thinking the category of the theological “has now returned with a vengeance,” and that we are witnessing in several notable contemporary philosophers a “‘turn to religion’ and to monotheism in particular.”1 Few participants in the contemporary discourse concerning the nature of the human person and the origin and idea of human culture have reasserted the continuing vitality of Christianity more powerfully than René Girard. Girard’s publications have been primarily in the area of literature, mythology, and anthropology, beginning with a book in 1961 on Cervantes, Stendhal, Flaubert, Dostoyevsky, and Proust, translated into English in 1965 as Deceit, Desire, and the Novel: Self and Other in Literary Structure. In 1999, looking back at the course of his career, Girard observed: “Great literature literally led me to Christianity. This itinerary is not original. It still happens every day and has been happening since the beginning of Christianity.”2 But that [End Page 5] itinerary does not describe the path travelled by the most famous scholars of literature during the rise of literary theory in the 1960s and 1970s, making Girard’s academic accomplishments all the more remarkable. He has been actively engaged with many of the most prominent intellectual movements in the humanities from the 1960s through today, but throughout that time he has become increasingly direct and persuasive in his assertion of the truth of biblical revelation in our efforts to understand all areas of human culture and to find salvation from the violence that is deeply ingrained in it. In this engagement, Girard has shown himself to be an important proponent of the Catholic intellectual tradition. We can trace Girard’s engagement with contemporary thinking in the humanities back to his position as one of the coorganizers of an important international conference in Baltimore in 1966 while he was a professor at Johns Hopkins University. That conference, titled “The Languages of Criticism and the Sciences of Man,” marked the academic ascendance of French structuralism and the establishment of the hope that the structural linguistics of Ferdinand de Saussure could provide a new basis for the humanities as the interdisciplinary study of all of human culture understood as a structure of signs. Such an approach promised nothing less than a new basis for the production and organization of knowledge in the human sciences, offering a new system of thought on the basis of which the various disciplines in the humanities could become cooperative partners in explaining all of culture as a vast semiotic system. Since the basis for this new understanding of the human sciences resided in the capability of the human person to make and use signs in accord with the recently discovered structuralist principles of sign systems, a new understanding of all claims to truth made by texts and other cultural products throughout cultural history, including religions and religious rituals, could now be pursued. Jacques Derrida gave a brilliant presentation at this conference in an essay titled “Structure, Sign, and Play in the Discourse of the Human Sciences.” Derrida claims that the new understanding of [End Page 6] all of culture as a semiotic system has introduced a new historical epoch, indicating in a historicist mode that the emergence of this new knowledge of the human person as inevitably caught within the production of semiotic systems that had no ground or foundation outside of the operation of the system itself has inevitably changed the possibilities of human knowledge. Derrida speaks in a prophetic mode at the conclusion of this essay as he ponders the emergence of a radically new cultural epoch now that we have finally come to understand ourselves as in a sense both producers and products of the systems of signs through which all of human culture has always been generated: Here there is a sort of question, call it historical, of which we are only glimpsing today the conception, the...

Paul's World (review)

Reviewed by: Paul's World John W. Marshall (bio) Stanley E. Porter , editor. Paul's World. Brill. 2008. xii, 284. €95.00, US$130.00 A good research library has perhaps sixty shelf feet directly on Paul of Tarsus. If one were to include the Roman History section, it would be well over two hundred shelf feet on what could be described as 'Paul and his world.' What then is a volume of an introduction and eleven essays entitled Paul's World? The coverage is necessarily incomplete, and the volume takes its place as the fourth in a ten-volume series on Pauline Studies. While the editor of the volume acknowledges the 'almost limitless' possibilities for essays on Paul's world, the rationale for offering these eleven remains unclear. Why an essay on 'The Languages Paul Did Not Speak' and no essays on, for example, economy or demography? To understand the position of this collection within the field of the study of early Christianity and the study of religion, it is necessary to have some practical understanding of the audience for a collection like Paul's World. At a price of about fifty cents a page (excluding thirty-one pages of indices) this is clearly not aimed at private ownership, much less airline or beach reading. It is aimed at library acquisition. The cultural appetite for studies like this is largely found within seminaries and [End Page 266] divinity schools. For this reason, very few of the essays present new and original research, but instead digest the work of classical scholarship and set it into relation to Saint Paul (where the term Saint is chosen to name the volume's disposition toward the figure). The other task the essays undertake is to bring technical biblical scholarship and scholarship focused on the beginnings of early Christianity to a seminary or divinity graduate-level audience. There are gems within the collection. James R. Harrison's essay on the 'Paul and the Athletic Ideal in Antiquity' very astutely emphasizes the role of visual and sculptural media in communicating the athletic ideal rather than the literary images to which scholars have traditionally gone to elucidate Paul. It is, however, a grave omission that no visual images accompany the essay, especially given the volume's price. Ronald Hock's essay on Paul's social class is a fresh consideration of the problem from a scholar who has made crucial contributions on the topic for many years. Such candour and willingness to reconsider one's own published positions are a credit. Many other essays exhibit fine control of scholarship and of literary and material data from the Roman world. Nevertheless, to return to the metaphor of appetite, such erudition is often the seasoning on a consideration of Paul and his world that is substantially one of faith. This shows clearly in the uncritical treatment of canonical evidence, especially the book of Acts that characterizes many essays, even to the extent of quoting Acts as words of Paul. Work that has Paul speak to 'the fractured church of today' is the work of faith, no matter how much scholarship is mixed in. John W. Marshall John Marshall, Department and Centre for the Study of Religion University of Toronto Copyright © 2011 University of Toronto Press Incorporated

The presence of the martyrs: Jesuit martyrdom and the Christianisation of Portuguese America

Since the beginning of Christianity, martyrdom has been one of the most important means of communion between the Church militant and the Church triumphant. The 16th century and the first half of the 17th constitute a period in which it was especially in evidence, both in narratives that recall and comment on the martyrs of the earliest centuries, and also in accounts of events in Christian daily life. The constellation of victims of the religious disputes in Europe, readily considered martyrs by their coreligionists, is relatively well known; this article focuses on a less well known group of martyrs, who died in different situations, in the context of the worldwide navigation and colonisation of vast territories in Africa, Asia, and America. Special attention is paid to the meanings given to martyrdom in the encounter between Christians and Indians in Portuguese America, and most especially between Jesuit missionaries and Tupi groups.

예루살렘 초대 교회의 히브리파, 헬라파와 초기 기독교의 기원 : 종교 사학파와 마르틴 헹엘의 초기 분파 이론 재고

On the basis of the early schism theory the religionsgeschichtliche Schule has suggested that Gentile Christianity started from Antioch apart from Jewish Christianity. They considered that Antioch was a very significant region related to the beginning of the earliest Christianity because Jesus tradition was translated at Antioch where was bilingual. However, Martin Hengel has held that the translation of Jesus tradition did not start from Antioch but from the Earliest Christian church in Jerusalem. In relation to this, he thinks that ?βρα?οι refer to Aramaic-speaking Palestinian Jewish Christians whereas ?λληνιστα? and ?πτ?, were Hellenistic Jewish Christians who spoke only Greek. He makes a monolingual, geographical, and ethnic distinction between ?βρα?οι and ?λληνιστα?.<BR> However, the Graeco-Roman Near East including Judaeo-Palestine was bilingual. This is approved by inscriptions, papyrus, and population geographical evidence. This means that translation of the Jesus tradition started from Galilee during Jesus’ ministry, not from Antioch or Jerusalem church. Furthermore, the two terms, ?βρα?οι and ?λληνιστα?, are not monolingual but bilingual designations. That is, ?βρα?οι spoke Aramaic as their matrix language and other language as their embedded language and ?λληνιστα?, spoke Greek as their matrix language and other language as their embedded language. Also, it seems that ?πτ?, were bilinguals. If Jerusalem Christian community was bilingual, the church members tried to choose bilinguals as their community leaders. As a result, Luke describes ?πτ?, as leaders of the whole Jerusalem community. He parallels ?πτ?, with δ?δ?κα. Luke also insinuates that Jesus" promise given to δ?δ?κα is fulfilled by the ?πτ?, and commandment given to δ?δ?κα was performed by the ?πτ?. This indicates that Luke stresses the line-up of Jesus - δ?δ?κα - ?πτ?. Hence, there was not early schism between ?βρα?οι and ?λληνιστα?, and between δ?δ?κα and ?πτ?.<BR> Accordingly, the bilingualism of Graeco-Roman Near East supports that Jesus tradition was translated during Jesus’ ministry but undermines the early schism theory. Furthermore, it is hard to find a sharp distinction between Jesus and Paul, Petrine Christianity and Pauline Christianity, Aramaic-speaking Palestinian Christianity and Greek-speaking Hellenistic Christianity, and Jewish Christianity and Gentile Christianity from the perspective of monolingualism because bilingual Jesus tradition was delivered to Paul through the Twelve and the Seven.

The Geometrical Concept in Manuscripts of Funan: A Preliminary Study

The geometrical concept is not exclusively developed and introduced by the westerners alone. In Asia, the geometrical concept can be traced as early as the existence of the Hinduism and Buddhism in India, much earlier than the Greek, then spread out to Southeast Asian countries before the beginning of Christianity. In this paper we shall discuss the influence of Buddhism geometry to the Malay world in Southeast Asia region during 4th -6th centuries in the era of Funan kingdom. The evidence of the existing Funan manuscripts are parallel to this analysis.

Exégèse et Histoire sainte dans l’Histoire ecclésiastique d’Eusèbe de Césarée (Livre I)

Exegesis and biblical history in Eusebius of Caesarea’s Ecclesiastical History (Book I) To speak about the beginnings of Christianity, Eusebius of Caesarea selects the most striking episodes in the life of Jesus-Christ and tells them with numerous references to the Old and New Testament. The aim of this article is to study the relationship between narration and exegesis. For this we shall analyse the way he refers to the Bible in the First Book of the Ecclesiastical History (more or less literal quotations, paraphrases or/and synopses); we shall also study the theological themes which make his narration both a holy story and an apologetical weapon.

Early Religious Practice in the Greenland Settlement

While the beginnings of Christianity in Greenland are very poorly recorded, the settlement has played a prominent role in the discussion of paganism, the conversion, and early Christianity in the Viking world, thanks to the sagas in which Greenlanders feature. In particular, the range of religious practice that is reflected in the literary representations of the past is very striking; the rituals of the seeress, Thorbjorg, the Christian practice of Eric's wife, Thjodhild, and Gudrid's pilgrimage to Rome and profession as a nun offer contrasting perceptions of lived religion in the late Viking Age. While the absence of other relevant sources relating to Greenland is clearly a disadvantage, it leaves us free to question entrenched assumptions about the early religious life of the community.While, as elsewhere, the conversion to Christianity in Greenland would have had a practical impact, ranging from the creation of political and economic alliances to changes in social custom (including burial and memorialization), I argue in this paper that Greenland might have been somewhat different from other Scandinavian communities overseas. Discussing and drawing on the written and material record, I propose that we might gain from resisting the narrative of Christian convention, which requires sudden, dramatic, and emphatic change, in favor of a different understanding of religious practice. If we entertain the possibility that some societies may have had more room for religious diversity than Christian sources would allow, it could be argued that the early community of Greenland, instead of conforming to Christian stereotype, experienced an extended period of diversity; a mixed society encompassing traditional religious practice and a largely domestic Christianity could have continued for some time until Christianity gained a sufficient degree of institutionalization to impose a more conventional Christian way of life.