Description: Paul Bradshaw attempts to drill down at several key points beneath the surface impression of early Christian worship that has been accepted in most studies of the primary sources. Each chapter begins from the conventional depiction of its topic. The author then subjects the sources to an assessment from the perspective of the methodology set out in his earlier work, Reconstructing Early Christian Worship, which then leads to new conclusions. Important aspects of the Eucharist, baptism, and daily prayer are each explored in turn and new understandings of those rites opened up. The resulting change in perception not only affects how we reconstruct our vision of the past but also how we use the past as precedent for worship practice today. Each chapter ends with a comment on the possible modern application of these new discoveries.
Brief description:
Paul F. Bradshaw is emeritus professor of liturgy at the University of Notre Dame and an Anglican/Episcopal priest. The author or editor of over thirty books and of more than 120 articles and essays, he is also a past president both of the North American Academy of Liturgy and of the international Societas Liturgica. From 1987 to 2005 he was editor-in-chief of the scholarly journal Studia Liturgica.
Review Quotes: [Reconstructing Early Christian Worship] will be useful to both accomplished and beginning scholars, helping them to enter the historical discussion and illustrating--also by what it does not consider--how much work remains to be done and redone in liturgical history.Gordon Lathrop, Worship