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IOTA Forum: Susan Ashbrook Harvey reviews Jephthah’s Daughter, Sarah’s Son: The Death of Children in Late Antiquity, by Maria Doerfler
One of the liveliest areas of current discussion amongst scholars of ancient Christianity is the diverse nature of theological discourse embedded in liturgy. Theologians may not find this idea surprising. What is liturgy, after all, if not the ritually enacted expression of doctrine? However, scholars of religion and historians of Christianity might see matters differently.
Liturgy, too, has a social history. Its presentation, content, and enactment respond to the time and place where it is performed, and to the social expectations and cultural needs of its context. Hence liturgical texts – sermons, hymns, and prayers – can sometimes provide windows into what scholars refer to as “lived religion”: that reality of religious practice that people enact in their daily lives, which may or may not align easily with doctrine or institutional mandates. A clear case is that of Christian responses to death.
Read Susan Ashbrook Harvey's full review here.
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