A book about the role of books in shaping the ancient religious landscape

This collection of essays by leading scholars from a variety of academic disciplines explores the ongoing relevance of Harry Gamble’s Books and Readers in the Early Church (1995) for the study of premodern book cultures. Contributors expand the conversation of book culture to examine the role the Hebrew Bible, the New Testament, and the Qur’an played in shaping the Jewish, Christian, and Muslim religions in the ancient and medieval world. By considering books as material objects rather than as repositories for stories and texts, the essays examine how new technologies, new materials, and new cultural encounters contributed to these holy books spreading throughout territories, becoming authoritative, and profoundly shaping three global religions.

Features:

• Comparative analysis of book culture in Roman, Jewish, Christian, and Islamic contexts


• Art-historical, papyrological, philological, and historical modes of analysis


• Essays that demonstrate the vibrant, ongoing legacy of Gamble’s seminal work

Karl Shuve is Associate Professor in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Virginia, where he has taught since 2011. He is the author of The Song of Songs and the Fashioning of Identity in Early Latin Christianity (2016).