Smoke & mirrors : discourses of magic in early Petrine traditions / Shaily Shashikant Patel.

Variant title Smoke and mirrors
Contents Introduction: "Magic" and early Petrine literary traditions -- Magic and the making of miracles in the Gospel of Luke -- Magic and the making of a Jesus movement in the canonical Acts -- Magic and the making of (a) Christianity in the Acts of Peter -- Magic and the making of heresy in the Pseudo-Clementine Homilies -- Coda: Lives and afterlives of Petrine "Magic."
Abstract "Smoke & Mirrors: Discourses of Magic in Early Petrine Traditions is a book about how magic disappears from early Christian texts that feature the apostle Peter. It offers a discursive genealogy of "magic" as it coalesces and shifts across four texts, ranging in date from the New Testament period to late antiquity: the Gospel of Luke, the canonical Acts of the Apostles, the Acts of Peter, and the Pseudo-Clementine Homilies. Smoke & Mirrors shows how writers in this literary trajectory redescribed those of Peter's activities that were stereotypically associated with magic in other Graeco-Roman literature, first by mitigating these activities' resemblances to ancient magic, and then, by attributing to them new conceptual associations - ones allowing "miracle" to coalesce in magic's stead. Equipped with a distinctively Christian category of wonderworking, our authors use miracle to help forge their respective orthodoxies, Petrine authors leverage miracle towards decidedly not-magical ends, such as establishing apostolic authority, articulating group boundaries, generating conversion, and signifying "heresy." Ultimately, Smoke & Mirrors argues that the categories of magic and miracle, as they are co-constituted in Petrine texts, are critical to early Christian self-fashioning"-- Provided by publisher.
Bibliography noteIncludes bibliographical references (pages [203]-215) and index.
Issued in other formOnline version http://id.loc.gov/entities/relationships/onlineversion Patel, Shaily Shashikant Smoke & mirrors New Yorkm NY : Oxford University Press, [2025] 9780197770559
LCCN 2025025013
ISBN9780197770528
ISBN0197770525 hardcover
ISBNelectronic book
ISBNelectronic publication

Availability

Library Location Call Number Status Item Actions
Joyner Order on Demand Title Order On Demand ✔ Available Click to order this title