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Literate Media in Early Christ Groups: The Creation of a Christian Book Culture
- Journal of Early Christian Studies
- Johns Hopkins University Press
- Volume 22, Number 1, Spring 2014
- pp. 21-59
- 10.1353/earl.2014.0004
- Article
- Additional Information
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The full emergence of Christian book culture in the fourth century was anticipated and prepared for by a series of developments in the second century: by presenting (anachronistically) the early heroes of the Jesus movement as skilled literate communicators; by the emergence of “textual communities” formed around the reading, study, and preservation of books; by valorizing literate culture through the embedding of allusions to books and book culture in Christian documents; and in the very construction of early Christian scriptural documents so as to render them more easily accessible to sub-elite readers.