Cognitive Science and the New Testament: A New Approach to Early Christian Research - Hardcover

Czachesz, István

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0198779860 ISBN 13: 9780198779865

Publisher: OUP Oxford, 2017

Synopsis

Over the last few decades, our knowledge of how the human mind and brain works increased dramatically. The field of cognitive science enables us to understand religious traditions, rituals, and visionary experiences in novel ways. This has implications for the study of the New Testament and early Christianity. How people in the ancient Mediterranean world remembered sayings and stories, what they experienced when participating in rituals, how they thought about magic and miracle, and how they felt and reasoned about moral questions--all of that can be now better understood with the help of insights from cognitive science. István Czachesz argues that the field of New Testament Studies witnesses the beginning of a cognitive turn. He surveys relevant developments in the Cognitive Science of Religion and explores the field of cognitive and behavioral sciences in search of opportunities of gaining new insights about biblical materials. Czachesz presents some methodological tools and initial steps, together with a large number of examples of applying the cognitive approach to the New Testament and related ancient literature.

About this title

About the Author

István Czachesz is based at the University of Tromsø. His publications include The Grotesque Body in Early Christian Discourse: Hell, Scatology and Metamorphosis (Routledge, 2012) and Mind, Morality and Magic: Cognitive Science Approaches in Biblical Studies (with Risto Uro; Routledge, 2013).

Edition details

• Publisher: OUP Oxford
• Publication date: 2017
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0198779860
• ISBN 13: 9780198779865
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 284