Religious Experience in Earliest Christianity: A Missing Dimension in New Testament Studies

Combining trenchant criticism with careful analysis, Luke Johnson calls for a radically new direction in New Testament studies, one that can change the way we view the entire phenomenon of early Christianity.In three fascinating probes of early Christianity--examining baptism, speaking in tongues, and meals in common--Johnson illustrates how a more wholistic approach opens up the wolrd of healings and religious power, of ecstasy and spirit--in short, the religious experience of real persons. Early Christian texts, he finds, reflect lives caught up in and defined by a power not in their control but engenedered instead by the crucified and raised Messiah Jesus.