Rethinking The Origins Of The Eucharist (scm Studies In Worship And Liturgy) [Paperback]

The Eucharist is the central act of Christian worship. In this book Martin Stringer brings the sociological analysis of biblical texts into conversation with liturgists and historians of the first century. He begins his analysis of the Eucharist and other early Christian meals from a detailed discussion of Pauls first letter to the Corinthians, the most studied text in the sociological tradition of biblical scholarship. He proposes that the meal portrayed in chapter 11 of that letter is more likely to have been an annual event rather than a weekly one. He considers other texts, both biblical and those from the first hundred and fifty years or so of Christian history and shows that the Eucharist, that is a ritual event consisting of the sharing of bread and wine associated with the body and blood of Jesus, is most likely to have been an invention of the Asian or Roman church around 100-110 CE.