Books and Readers in the Early Church: A History of Early Christian Texts

About this book

This fascinating and lively book provides the first comprehensive discussion of the production circulation and use of books in early Christianity. It explores the extent of literacy in early Christian communities; the relation in the early church between oral tradition and written materials; the physical form of early Christian books; how books were produced transcribed published duplicated and disseminated; how Christian libraries were formed; who read the books in what circumstances and to what purposes. Harry Y. Gamble interweaves practical and technological dimensions of the production and use of early Christian books with the social and institutional history of the period. Drawing on evidence from papyrology codicology textual criticism and early church history as well as on knowledge about the bibliographical practices that characterized Jewish and Greco-Roman culture he offers a new perspective on the role of books in the first five centuries of the church.